


MISSING

by ellymelly



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M, Filler, M/M, Missing bits, REALLY LONG TAG, twissy trash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2018-11-30 19:05:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 142,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11469795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellymelly/pseuds/ellymelly
Summary: The final two episodes from Missy's perspective including the Missy scenes that we never got to see. Mostly set at the farm. Let's just say that the Doctor, Missy and the Master have a lot of issues to work though - not all of them PG.





	1. Chapter 1

Deception was a talent and this incarnation dripped with it. She could lie with her eyes – lie with crafted words and lie to herself. It was a habit she’d been trying to kick during her near-hundred year evil-detox programme. Missy wasn’t convinced her morality was getting any better but certainly on the surface she’d been able to present a façade sufficient to lull the Doctor into agreeing to an excursion. Convincing his pets had taken a bit longer but that was probably her fault for threatening to eat them on more than one occasion.

Parading around the TARDIS, she paused to lay against the wall and feel the engines spinning. There was a bitter musk of energy on the air and a vibration from a slight fault. It wasn’t perfect yet but the ship was running more smoothly. A few more months of work and she’d have the TARDIS back to its glory days. The Doctor had even let her sleep down there a few times among the wires and spinning clouds of charged ions.

“You’re chipper,” the Doctor noted, emerging from the depths of the TARDIS with his hands clasped behind his back suspiciously.

“Are you having second thoughts?”

“No.” He replied quickly. _Yes. Of course. What am I thinking…_ His eyes said.

“You needn’t worry,” Missy assured her old friend, rolling around so that she was laying against the wall with a bookshelf either side of her. “I’ll not run. We had an agreement.”

“When has that stopped you?”

“Always.”

The Doctor thought about it. “Oh – that was me, wasn’t it?”

“Yes dear, that was you.”

He looked down at his feet nervously. Always nervous – even after the aeons and all they’d done. It was her eyes. They peered through him, peeling his layers away. “If you were to run and as a result I break my vow to guard you – it’ll be me on the scaffold. They take those things very seriously.”

“I know that too. What are you hiding?” Her head tilted quite dramatically.

“Oh this?” He pulled out the roughly wrapped, vaguely spherical gift from behind his back and brandished it in her direction, stepping forward.

“Doctor… Did you get me a _gift_?”

“No – uh – yes. Sort of. For your-” He wasn’t quite sure how to express it so he just waved his hand in her general direction.

Missy helped, descending the stairs and taking the parcel from him. She held it reverently for a moment. “Giving gifts is usually my area,” she observed, giving him a wink. Then she tore the tissue away in a single stroke as though she had claws. “Oh!”

Her enormous grin was infectious and the Doctor found himself sharing in her joy as she held up the bizarre hat.

“I _love_ it!” Missy exclaimed, sliding the hat onto her hair. She extracted a couple of hat pins from _god knows where_ in her jacket and set it in place then gave him a bit of a twirl.

“Much better.” The Doctor nodded, reaching out to her arm to steady her for a moment. The touch was brief. Unexpected. There’d been a few of them lately – more and more. They were inching closer to each other and both of them could sense the inevitable approaching. Whether the horizon was tonight or in the next hundred years, neither of them knew. “You have to have a hat,” he added, “you always have a hat. Why is that?”

“I’ve no idea,” Missy admitted. “When I regenerated the first place I crashed was Paris. I had this _desire_ to have a hat. I remember it well but this – this I prefer.”

“Is it the feathers?”

Her eyes softened. _It was from him. She’d always prefer it._ “Oh no, here come the children...” She pulled back at the sound of footsteps outside the door.

*~*~*

Eating. The nerve of him! Missy could hear the insufferable crunching in her ear piece as he fritted around the TARDIS, silently marking her as if she were one of his students. Oh how they pined over him. She could hear it, coming through their ill-formed text on the essays he let her read. He hadn’t realised but then the Doctor had never been one to read between the lines. Missy? She _lived_ in those spaces separating the print.

A moment later she found herself at the pointy end of a primitive energy weapon. The barrel shook in time with the blue alien’s hand. He was all eyes and stinking of terror. Missy snarled quietly. Her instinct was to snap him down with her sonic umbrella – safety assured but that was not the Doctor’s way so she waited. Listened. Lingered in the danger and learned to relish the rush of fate against her face.

It ended poorly.

*~*~*

He was enjoying himself. That was the most sickening thing about the whole situation. His little friend was dead – great big gaping hole in her chest and the Doctor’s eyes were alive with the thrill of it. A weirdly familiar need to protect the Doctor kicked in and Missy found herself staring down the blue alien with a fierce glower. _She’d kill for him._ In an instant. Without a thought. He wouldn’t like that so she held back, placating with lies rather than violence but the blue man felt the truth.

Stepping toward the lifts Missy hesitated. They should run back to the TARDIS. Fly away. The Doctor’s single-minded guilt for his pet was about to lead him off the edge of a cliff and she had no choice to follow. If this was ‘being good’ she feared her lifespan had been sheered in half.

*~*~*

 _Mondas._ _Shit. Absolute shit._ Those fucking cloth-heads had a familiar look to them but it was so long ago. Even Time Lords had trouble recalling  events from several thousand years ago. _Except those nights in the halls of Gallifrey_.

She pushed away from the console and had nearly made  into the hallway w hen the irritating lurker reared up  from behind – mocking her.

“Oh – Doctor – Doctor – Doctor!” He riled.

Missy’s limbs froze.  A wave of bile rose up her throat. She knew that tone. She knew that voice. It wasn’t the first time she’d used those words to mock herself but generally she preferred to be the one uttering them.  _Fucking hell. Not now._ Missy turned slowly and lifted her eyes. She wasn’t certain  _but she suspected._

And she was right. When the mask came off  Missy found herself staring at her past – an echo left in memory – alive.  God, he burned. She could see it in his face. Even now she remembered his passion for hate – how it warmed her soul.

She was done with that.

“I’m very worried about my future...” He rattled off, side-eyeing Missy like she was some kind of consolation prize. _So young._

The Doctor was in danger. Mondasian Cybermen were crawling over the ship and his pet was missing – she needed to get back and warn him but she had to deal with _this_ first. “If I were you, I’d be worried about my immediate future.” Missy replied, circling him. She was taller now – physically larger as well. If it came to it her odds were better than his. “Although it’s nice to know that there’s a way off this ship. Your presence rather gives the game away.”

“What’s the deal here?” The Master asked, holding the corpse of his disguise. “Trap the Doctor with an old foe – have a bit of a lark watching from the sidelines? How did you manage it or was it a trick?”

_Lying was an art._

“This is a long game and _you’re in the way_.” She snapped back. “So, kindly crawl back into your TARDIS and find something else to do for the afternoon. I’m working.”

“Nice hat.”

“Thank you.”

“No.”

“No _what_?” Missy  pressed.

“No. I’ve been sitting down here watching you and him on that screen for _decades_. I’m not about to scurry off just when things are getting interesting.  Had a bit of fun already, as you might have guessed. Those pets of his – they are terribly dull, aren’t they? I know you think so too. You may have changed on the outside but you and me, we are the same.”

M issy took a  measured breath and stepped back. He was undressing – taking off the layers of filth – letting his tattered cape drop to the ground along with his old face. Beneath he’d dressed in one of the finer suits that she’d lost along the way somewhere. Then, casual as you like, he slipped out a pencil and slid a dark line of charcoal under his eyes.  He was serious and there was no easy way to shake him off. Didn’t she know that… A dog with a bloody bone. The last thing she needed was to find herself in chains  and exchange one jailer for another . No. Whatever the Master’s plan was, if she had any hope of keeping the Doctor out of trouble she’d have to play along.

T he thought of it made her ill. Shifting from charade to charade, how was the Doctor to know her intention when he always assumed the worst? No matter.  Their survival mattered more than her pride. Somehow she was going to have to get both the Master and the Doctor out of this alive.

“How long have you been waiting to wear that little ensemble then?” Missy asked, shifting into playfulness to distract him. _Yes, there was that too. She’d caught a look or two already._

“I had ample time to pull something together,” he admitted. “This black hole… Sometimes I forgot how tiresome _time_ can be. Though it did present a golden opportunity. A bubble in time to build a present for the Doctor – one he might like, I think. A whole city converting the population into Cybermen. They’re a bit slow right now but give them a few thousand years and I – well _you and I_ could really have some fun.”

“Another present. He’ll like that.” _An army of Cybermen and all they had was the egg-thing and a couple of sonic devices. The Doctor was good but he wasn’t that good._

“Come on – girl copy...”

“ _Not_ a copy...” Missy reminded him. “I am you and you are me. As you said. Remember that.”

“Well, shall we go say, ‘hi’ to our dear Doctor?”

* ~*~*

Missy felt the Doctor’s eyes on her for some time before she could muster her courage to look up. His companion, Bill or whatever, was a fully fledged Cyberman standing in the centre of the room like a household appliance. The Doctor was in shock. That much was evident but his day was going to get worse. She wanted to say  _sorry_ .  Wished she could warn him about the face waiting in the shadows. Wanted – more than anything, to give him some kind of assurance that she wasn’t tearing his heart out for real – only for show.

Theatrics were their thing but every now and then they played it too close to the line.

The Master sauntered in to the surgery and the Doctor’s eyebrows dropped. For a moment he seemed to forget that she existed at all.  Missy , of course, was the leopard on a chain but the Master was a puma in the wild, stalking around in the jungle,  about to tear someone’s throat out.

They stood as bookends with Bill between them.  The  Doctor  turned white with fright. She hated the betrayal in his eyes. The Doctor had a way of projecting his disappointment right into the soul  and all of it he reserved for her . Missy mimicked the Master’s movements,  turning herself into a frightening mirror. Another act.

_Let him lead._ It was the only way to unravel his plan.

“Missy – _please..._ ”

Her hands clenched at the Doctor’s soft plea. She reached out to him with her mind – hoping to offer something but he’d closed himself off and left her grasping in the dark.

*~*~*

The first strike was brutal. The Master’s fist smacked into the Doctor’s face, throwing the Doctor backwards. Missy flinched away, swallowing her instinct. The Master went straight back in – again and again, swiping at the Doctor with his hands – equipment from the lab – anythin g he could find.

The Doctor was  left on his knees, dripping blood from his forehead onto the ground. He reached up and touched it, rubbing it between his fingers. The pure bile that was spilling between the pair of them rattled Missy’s soul. Old pain. Slights and burns that she had pushed to the back of her mind in the hundreds of years since. She didn’t remember any of this but perhaps the process of airing all the darkness between them had been  cathartic in the end.  _Or maybe it would finally kill them._

Missy looked up and realised that the Master was staring at her, waiting for an answer to a question that she’d never heard the first time.

“Well, don’t keep us in suspense.” The Master prompted. “This is what we agreed.”

“Did we?” Missy slipped momentarily. It was enough for the Doctor to find the strength to clamber back to his feet. There were dark bruises knitting through his skin, covering his face and neck. She wanted to move to him, cup his face in her hands and hold him close. The wounds between them were so deep that she was _done_ making them deeper. At some point you had to draw a line and heal. This was the last thing she wanted right now.  What if it tore her stitches straight out?

“What – are you actually feeling _sorry_ for him?” The Master’s suspicion grew. He was taking a second look at her. Questioning.

Missy caught herself and straightened up. She raised the umbrella and squeezed the fabric in her hands. The steel beneath was going to hurt. The Doctor’s eyes flicked toward the rudimentary computer system to the side. That wasn’t the first time he’d done that. It wasn’t much but it was all she could offer.

“Stand up, Doctor...” Missy commanded. Her voice was firm and she’d never know what compelled him to obey but he did. She moved closer, locking eyes with him.

“Missy – you don’t have to do this. Missy...”

“Let it go, Doctor. I already failed your little test.” She swung the umbrella and hit him firmly in the chest, throwing him onto the computer where he landed in a pile of hands and limbs. Missy immediately turned to the Master, distracting him with a dazzling smile that lasted long enough for the Doctor to mash on the keyboard. Goodness knows what he was up to, as long as he succeeded.

The Doctor made a choking sound as he slid from the table.

The pair of them turned as he faded off into oblivion – unable to take any more abuse.

“God, was he always this easy?” The Master strutted about, disappointed. “Did something happen to him?”

“The Doctor was always fragile,” Missy replied, kneeling down beside him. She placed the back of her hand on his forehead. He was burning up – swarming in time energy. He’d been dying for a long time but he wouldn’t tell her why. Missy had a terrible feeling that this entire process of turning her good was born out of mortal fear rather than a true desire on his part.

The Master  watched h er tenderness and curled his lip in disgust. “I can’t believe I’m going to be you,” he added. “Are you the next one along or-?”

“I think so,” she replied. “That last regeneration, it’s all a bit of a blur I’m afraid. A haze. Even if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you. Spoilers.”

“What?”

“Oh – it’s – it’s something _he_ says.”

* ~*~*

The  Master wanted to kill him outright.  He’d been gunning for it – climbing up onto the edge of the roof – peering down over the city and laughing at the drop. “Oh how well he’ll look, all bones and skin!” He’d said, pulling back with a smile. “We’ve been down a few good heights – you and I. It hurts like shit, putting everything back together. That’s what he deserves – the pain.”

Missy looked over to the Doctor, unconscious and strapped in the wheelchair they’d taken from the hospital. His head was still dripping, thick and slow. “I hear he has many lives,” Missy replied, distracting the Master. “You’ll be up and down all night if you seek to end him that way. And your suit – think of your suit… All the blood will get into the lining – you’d hate that .  I might break a nail. ”

He pulled out his laser screwdriver and pointed it first at her  heart , then the Doctor. It’d be a lie to pretend there wasn’t a moment of ice in her veins. A horrible death.  Burning from the inside out. She’d snapped that wretched device in half the moment she took this body and tossed it into the abyss.  That was one of her first memories. Watching it float into the dark.

“Shooting him is a bit – _boring_ – for us, don’t you think, dear?” Missy stepped closer and eventually managed to lay her hand on  the Master’s arm, lowering it. She all but purred at the Master, softening his blood lust.

“True. True. It would be over in an instant and where is the fun in that? I want it to last, his death, like the times that we spent lingering between life and death in the pain and torment. Did he come for us then? No. He let us suffer.”

“I remember…” Missy realised.

“Do you? It doesn’t seem that way. I saw the looks you gave the Doctor – the ones you’re still giving him. What is that, Missy? Pity? Is it something else?”

“I _remember_.” She repeated, firmly. “Of course I do but I’ve had time to think and so will you. Time changes your perspective.”

“So you _don’t_ want to kill him then?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Didn’t you?”

“I -”

“Oh look, grand dad’s awake.”

* ~*~*

T he minute the Cyberman’s hands wrapped around the Doctor’s waist Missy raced over. They’d been discussing the Doctor’s death for the last hour.  S he’d been trying to save his life and  when she’d finally worked him out of the Master’s clutches  here he was, in the jaws of death. Thank  _fuck_ the Master’s Cybermen were still in their infancy. Their powers weren’t enough to kill a Time Lord outright.

Missy saw the laser screwdriver on the cement and bent down, retrieving it immediately.  _Oh._ She knew that weight in her hand.

“Doctor!” Missy watched as he spun, around and around, unable to get a clear line. She couldn’t risk hitting him with the beam. _Now that would kill him._

In the end she didn’t need to.  Cyber-Bill woke up and went into a rage. J ust when  Missy thought she had a chance to go to the Doctor and offer him a moment of comfort, she heard the Master’s voice on the air and pulled herself back from his body.

_Lie. Lie and lie again._

She feigned disinterest and went off to shadow the Master. She couldn’t risk letting him loose in the world,  unsupervised.

* ~*~*

The crash left Missy shaken. Smoke poured out from the craft along with a rush of smog from the burning city below. The ship was busy healing itself, repairing the damage so quickly that they only  _just_ escaped the craft before it was torn asunder and sucked into the fabric of the ship.

Cyber-Bill carried the Doctor in her arms while the Master strode ahead, nose to the sky, feeling the glow of a different set of electric lights. He’d been cooped up, trapped down on the lower decks for countless decades. Missy doubted that he knew exactly how long.  _Why couldn’t she remember any of it?_ Of course. The laws of time. He couldn’t retain the memories so for her it was nothing but a terrifying dream. They’d been whispering to the surface of her mind every now in then during her time in the vault. She’d wake, in the middle of the night, covered in sweat and screaming with no idea why.

The Doctor moaned softly. She heard – no one else did. As they paced through the mist she stumbled toward him and brushed her fingertips through his hair while the Master was distracted. It was the best she could do.

*~*~*

The Master was insufferable. For the first time, Missy was seeing herself through the Doctor’s eyes and honestly she was surprised that she hadn’t been killed more often. The only residence they’d been able to find was a farmstead surrounded by scarecrows made of Cybermen strapped to crosses and left hanging in the fields.

“Wait here...” Missy whispered to Bill. She looked over her shoulder but the Master was already off, over the paddock toward the building, following Nardole.

“Why should I listen to you?” Bill asked, her voice a mixture of synthesised beats and speech.

“I know what this looks like,” Missy leaned closer. She reached down and placed her palm on the Doctor’s chest. She could feel his hearts beating – softer than she’d like. “That man _was_ me but that is not who I am any more. He is my past and my past is dangerous.”

“You are dangerous,” Bill replied. “The Doctor said so. He kept you in a vault for decades.”

“Yes! And then he let me out.” Missy softened, looking at the Doctor’s pet. _She’d done this_ , even if she couldn’t remember it and the Master was right about one thing, the Doctor would _never forgive her_. “When he wakes up he will hate me – as I’m sure you do  now. My job is not to be loved, it is to get you back home and to keep him alive. Whatever you believe of me, I _am_ his friend.”

“You are a liar.”

“Yes. I am. My lies will save his life.” Missy watched as Bill’s metal body swayed. “Very soon, you’re going to reboot. A couple of weeks, I’d say, before you wake again. In that time I am the only thing standing between the Doctor and that man over there. Stay here. Keep him safe and I will come back for you, Bill. I swear it.”

B ill did not trust Missy but she feared the Master even more. “He – you – betrayed me.”

“I know.” This time Missy lifted her hand from the Doctor’s chest and laid it on Bill’s instead. Cold metal. No rhythm. No heart beat. Dead. “And I am sorry. I am.”

M issy wasn’t even sure if Bill would survive the software upgrade rippling through her brain. It was likely that this was the last human experience she would have and Missy tried to be kind.

*~*~*

“Impolite, don’t you think?” Missy caught up with herself, falling into step with the Master. He was rubbing the nasty bump she’d left on the back of his head. She’d hit him a lot harder than she realised – if the dried blood in his hair was anything to go by. She tried to touch it – to apologise but he beat her off.

“What were you playing at anyway, hitting yourself like that?”

“Well your brilliant plan was exploding in our faces. What was I supposed to do? Stand there and die on a rooftop? No thanks.”

“They were just Cybermen. We could have taken them, together.”

“Oh you arrogant sod.” Missy muttered, trying not to slip in the mud. Her heels were sinking into the soft ground. The smell of _farm_ was real enough, even if the sky wasn’t. There was an ominous number printed on the horizon reminding her of the metal casket they were sealed within. “ That battle was lost and you know it. The Doctor’s little pet got us out of that situation – not you.”

Nardole was already in front of them by half a paddock, determined that he’d reach the house before the evil twins.

“Fine. Maybe. But never forget, I had everything under control until he changed the conditions of their programming. The only and I mean the _only_ reason we’re on the menu  right now is because he put us there. Our precious Doctor did that and if we end up in one of those factories I promise he won’t be lining up to save us.”

“You idiot...” Missy reached out and grabbed the Master’s shoulder, twisting him around. “Look at _me_!”

“Yeah. All right. I’m looking – what’s your point?”

“I _exist_ which means that one way or another you are getting off this ship. You’ve got adventures in front of you still to come, oh, the things you’ll see. The _only_ person who is assured survival in this equation is _you_ so would you please stop complaining. Now, you turned Bill into a Cyberman and when the Doctor wakes up and processes that properly he’s going to hate both of us. As far as I can see, the _only_ friend you have in this world is _me_.”

“Times when you know you’re truly alone...”

“One day you won’t be alone.”

*~*~*

T he woman at the door took a fancy to Nardole and that was the  _only_ reason she lingered long enough to hear their story. The Master remained silent, folding himself into a rocking chair on the porch while they bargained for amnesty. Nardole pretended that they were a group of friends – visitors to the spacecraft caught up in the time dilation.  Prickly friends. The woman  lived in a nest of lies, woven to keep the children safe and sniffed their game out pretty fast .  In the end she decided to help anyway.  Kindness was a human trait that Missy was still trying to get a handle on.

Bill – now there was the difficult sell  to a countryside full of terrified people. Bill’s mind had already started to fail  by the time they made it  back for her and the Docto r . They found her, laid on the ground  in the field beside the Doctor, staring at the sky whispering,  _‘is it real’_ over and over.  Her voice echoed out of that metal hell. Then something about a pyramid. Then nothing at all.

In the end, Missy carried the doctor over her shoulder, clutching his bony for m . Beneath all the layers he was a fragile bird, tired of the world. Missy held him tight  as she struggled,  barefoot, toward the house. The Master, Nardole and the woman carried Bill’s metal body  between them . When they reached the house, they broke off and headed directly to the barn to hide  Bill before the children could see. Missy continued into the house where she was led up the stairs to a bedroom.

Missy laid the Doctor on the bed and rushed the others out of the room with a hiss, slamming the door. She laid back against it for a moment, pressing  into the solid surface while she looked at the crumpled body on the bed. He looked terrible. He had done for months.

“I’m sorry...” Missy whispered, even though he wasn’t awake to hear.

She crossed  over to the bed and rolled him onto his back.

“Yes well, I don’t want to hear any jokes about this when we’re back in the vault, all right?” She added, still talking to herself. It helped to pretend that he could hear her – otherwise she was alone.

Missy unlaced his shoes and slid them off, sitting them beneath the bed. Next, she gripped onto the sides of his jacket and pulled him up into a seated position, allowing him to crumble forward against her chest as she worked his arms out of the sleeves, divesting him of the jacket. It wreaked of smoke and had  fresh tears at the edge s . She let it slip to the floor.

“There’s nothing of you, really...” Missy murmured, shifting up the bed with him until she was able to lay the Doctor against the pillows.

For a moment she perched on the bed, one hand over his body and the other draped around the top of his pillow. He’d saved her, countless times, this was her turn.

There was a soft knock at the door. Missy opened it, quieter than before.

“For his wounds – and for the fire…” The strange man said, holding up a tray.

He was an ordinary looking human so  Missy stepped to the side and allowed him to come in. She watched from the door as he set the tray next to the bed then moved over to the fireplace. Soon after, a glow flickered into existence. He had no intention of intruding, returning to the door.

“Is he your-” the man started.

It was only then that Missy felt the hot tears sliding over her cheeks. She had no idea when she’d started to cry them but they were thick. She touched them, almost in shock.

“Call, if you need anything. I am next door.” He added, then, “I lost my wife to the metal creatures from below. They come and the come and they come. They say you arrived on another ship. Will you take us with you?”

“I’ll try...” Missy replied, before she realised. They were the Doctor’s words not hers but they spilled out of her lips.

Missy locked the door this time and sat beside the Doctor. She brushed his hair back from his face and cleaned the nasty gash with a wet cloth. The flesh was torn apart from the ring on the Master’s finger when he’d struck him in the face. The bruises were fading but she knew the real damage was under his shirt. That’s where he’d suffered the worst of it, including her strike.

She unbuttoned  the fabric tenderly, ignoring the dark red stains seeping through from beneath. Missy pushed the edges open and sat back, taking a good long look at the damage she’d caused. Yes. In the end it was all her. Young and old, she could not excuse herself. Everything the Master did was all on her.

Missy traced her fingertips over one of the cuts. He was warm – the time energy swelling up from inside his body wherever it cracked.  It lifted to her touch, sensing another Time Lord.

“Tickles...”

Missy’s hand snapped away. “ Doctor?”

“Last time I checked...” He stirred, eyes fluttering open. He groaned sharply when he tried to move.

“No, don’t do that.” Missy insisted, taking his wrists and gently pressing them back down into the bed. “You need to rest. You’ll heal. Let’s face it, this isn’t the worse thing that’s happened to you. Remember when you fell into that mine when we were kids? Broke every bone – dragged me down after you.”

“You thought we were going to die down there in the dark. You cried for days...” He added, very softly – unaware of what he was saying.

“I certainly did.” Missy placed her hand back on his chest. The action was so tender that the Doctor wasn’t sure if it was real. A moment ago she’d been tearing him apart.

“Didn’t – Missy, did you hit me?”

“Afraid so. A couple of times.”

“You hit _hard_.”

“I know. I had to. The teenage version of me had it in his head that killing you was a good idea. We were all young once. Doctor?”

He was starting to drift again. “Where – where am I?”

“Somewhere safe.” Missy replied, leaning a little closer. “Go back to sleep.”

“Are – you taking my shirt off?”

Missy managed a smirk through her tears. “ Oh, I’ve seen it all before...”

“Liar.”

“Never...”

Then he was gone again and Missy was left to guard him.

*~*~*

Hours later, the Master climbed the stairs and hammered on the door,  insisting she let  him in. He growled her name  over and over, demanding his laser screwdriver  back.

“Keep taking Rassilon’s name in vane and he’ll bloody well come back!” She shrieked. “Where is it that you think I’m going to go? We’ll talk in the morning now _shut up!_ ”

The Master bashed his hand against the door one more time but eventually retired. The next person  brave enough to try was Nardole. He was well practised with Time Lords.

“How is he?” Nardole asked, after Missy allowed him into the room. Nardole wasn’t stupid. He understood _exactly_ what was going on between the two Time Lords. He’d been listening to the Doctor rabbit on about his youth on Gallifrey and then been subjected to the mirror of his stories in the vault with Missy. Somehow they’d returned to their starting point. Irrational as it was, they were in love and there was no cure for that.  He just wished they’d work it out before they tore a star system apart.

“Healing,” Missy replied. “Though his previous injuries are what I’m worried about.”

“Prior?”

“The Doctor has been very ill for nearly a year. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it’s killing him.”

Nardole was shocked. “And you weren’t going to mention this?”

“I’m sure if he wanted you to know or he would have said!” Missy replied. “I’m only telling you now because I reckon the next decent bump he gets is going to send him over the edge. Right now you could literally slap him into his next face.”

“Good thing River’s not here.” Missy’s eyes snapped up to his. Hurt. “The Mistress jealous of the wife.”

“Careful or I’ll disassemble you again.”

“It’s a good thing, Missy. A broken heart means that you have one. At least at the moment.”

“I need you to keep an eye on the Master – just for a few days.” Missy insisted, following Nardole as he started to back away, hands raised. “Come on. I have to stay with the Doctor and I don’t trust myself running around without a chaperone. You know I’m right. As soon as the Doctor is on his feet I’ll swap. I swear.”

“Fine but if the Master tries to use me as spare parts...”

“Don’t worry, I nicked is screwdriver...” Missy brandished it at Nardole.

“If you’re trying to make me feel better...”

* ~*~*

M issy bandaged, dressed and dragged up the thick blankets  around the Doctor to keep him warm as the evening frost set in. She could see a false moon tracking over the sky outside, casting long, silver shapes over the land.  The fire place was the only source of light in the room. It crackled away as Missy finally sat down in one of the chairs, exhausted.

Ever since she’d run into the Master, her head had been screaming at her. Her mind was foggy, swirling about and ached. Something was wrong, that much she knew. It wasn’t the first time she’d run into another version of herself but this was the first time the experience had made her physically ill. She had this overwhelming desire to run away. It was deep seated – an urge whose only counterpoint was the Doctor laying in the bed.

She’d shucked out of her heavy coat long ago and now considered the clothes laid out for her. An hour or so of internal debate later and she wandered over to them, changing out of her filthy skirt and shirt and into the night ie  that was so long it reached past her knees.  Next, she reached up and let her hair down in its mad halo.

There was only one bed but it was large and the night was cold. Missy sighed and returned to the Doctor. He was fast asleep. She set herself down beside him on top of the blankets and laid back, careful not to wake him. Almost at once her limbs  slackened . God she was tired and this – this was the first night she’d looked up and seen something other than the vault. Ironic – that her night of freedom had been exchanged for a different kind of vault. She had a terrible feeling, right in her soul, that she’d never be free again.

Missy pulled the last blanket up and closed her eyes, falling asleep to the sound of the Doctor’s quiet breathing.


	2. Chapter 2

“Missy...”

Tears ran out from the corner of Missy’s eyes, cried in the depths of her sleep. She was shivering, almost in laughter. Manic. Dreadful. Laughter.

“Missy – wake up.”

Her hands shook uncontrollably.

“Missy!”

Her eyes snapped open and she arched off the bed, tugged back down by a hand on her arm. Missy turned and found the Doctor’s fingers wrapped around her arm. His eyes were wide with concern, staring through her.

“How long have you had dreams like this?” The Doctor whispered, releasing his hold on her as she settled.

“Years...” She replied, rubbing both her arms. Inside, her bones felt like they were frozen. If he hadn’t left her alone every night in the vault, he might actually know that. “You – you look better.”

It was still dark outside and colder now that the fire had settled into a smouldering wreck. “A little.” The Doctor wasn’t sure how to discuss what happened. There was too much. Bill. The spaceship. The Master. “Missy...” He reached out to her, grazing her cheek with his palm. She pressed into him on instinct, sliding against his hand and down, leaning toward him. “Just for tonight, how about we don’t talk?”

Missy nodded, turning toward him. She felt his hand slip into her hair as she settled against his side. She was careful, allowing her arm drape low on his waist away from the worst bruises. Her head rested near his shoulder and he turned his head to kiss her forehead softly.

They were going to have to talk and god knows it would hurt. Not tonight.

*~*~*

In the morning they stared at each other. Silence settled as their minds opened. His eyes pale and grey; hers sharp and blue. Their hands were tangled and twisted, resting on each other’s chests. They had always understood each other better when they stopped speaking. Words – words are what got them into trouble. She was rash with hers and he, too clever. It led to raging arguments that tore through entire lecture halls.

Not this. Silence was _honest_.

That was how it happened – the inevitable. With barely a breath between them it was only a slight shifting from one that caused their lips to meet. It was so soft that neither pushed any further than the chaste touch. Both allowed it to linger.

Friendship – yes, but this was dipping into deeper waters. It was not the first time they’d been here and it would be a lie if Missy didn’t admit to being frightened. When they fell in together, her and the Doctor, they fell so far that they forgot _everything_. The ground was always rushing up to meet them and when it did they’d shatter into a million pieces and spend the next century putting themselves back together.

It was the Doctor who leaned in again, taking her by surprise. He was firmer, parting his lips against hers and for a second, Missy crumbled. His tongue swept over her bottom lip and she submitted, gasping softly. A stab of pleasure struck her. Missy pulled back.

“We better not.” Missy untangled their hands and placed her finger to his lips. They were moist from hers. “You can barely breathe. I don’t want to break you.”

“You’ll only break me if you stop,” he murmured, catching a wayward curl between his fingers. She was absolutely wild looking. _Exactly how he liked her best._

“How long has it been, since you looked at me like that?” Missy whispered. Her resolved slipped with every second.

“I always look at you like this,” he replied, “you just don’t see me.”

Missy kissed him one more time, deep enough to leave them both gasping for the manufactured air. When it was over, she pressed her forehead against his and closed her eyes. “Theta, if you don’t rest you will regenerate. I saw...”

He lifted up his hand and watched a few golden particles ripple near the surface. “Oh, that...”

“Yeah – _that_. I need you to stay,” Missy begged. “This old face of yours. For Bill. For me...”

“Bill...” The Doctor tried to sit up but Missy pinned him gently to the bed. “She’s rebooting. There’s nothing you can do for her right now except sleep.”

“And the Master...”

“Nardole is shadowing him.”

“You’re – frightened of him. I saw.”

“Of course I am. I remember what it was like to _be_ him. You cannot imagine how angry he is, Doctor. Especially with you. There was a time where I hated you enough to tear the stars down.”

“Hatred is too strong an emotion to waste on someone that you don’t like.”

Missy frowned. Confused. The more she thought about it the deeper the crease between her eyebrows became. “Where did you hear that?”

“I can’t remember,” he admitted. “But I think I’m starting to understand.” The Doctor’s hand was still running through Missy’s wild hair, catching in a tangle. “You forget, _I know you_. I’ve always known you. And he is _you_ , Missy.”

“He looks like a stranger to me.”

“The past _is_ a stranger.” The Doctor whispered.

*~*~*

Missy emerged from the Doctor’s room and held her head. Everything was swarming about in her mind. She could sense fleeting memories of this place but they were not hers, they were _his._ She’d walk into a room for the first time and recognise it. Meet someone and instinctively know their name. It was unsettling.

Nardole passed Missy in the hallway and nodded. “Hungry? There are eggs downstairs and a bit of bread. You’ve been in that room for days.”

“Later...” She replied, rubbing her face. Whatever makeup she’d had on was smudged into a veneer on her cheeks.

Nardole was unnerved, seeing a Time Lord like that. He took her by the arm and led her into a side room despite her vicious protests. “Listen...” He started, once the door was closed and they were alone. “Your little alter ego is swanning around looking for one of two things, something to kill or a way to escape. You can’t let him see you like this.”

“Like _what?_ ” Missy inspected her arm where he’d held her.

“Like you’re defeated.”

Missy turned to one of the mirrors in the room and inspected her face. She looked oddly young with everything out of place. Her carefully crafted layers were all over the place.

“The Master will see it as weakness and then heaven help us all if he thinks he’s at the top of the food chain.”

*~*~*

Missy allowed Nardole to help her. He was practised – all those years with River, no doubt and by the time he was done with Missy she looked presentable enough to wander down for a late breakfast. The Master was waiting for her, knife in hand, peeling an apple.

“You’ve got something that belongs to me.”

Missy tore a corner off her bread roll. “Our screwdriver, I know.”

“That too.”

She looked up curiously.

“The Doctor.” He explained. “We agreed to kill him so why are you wasting so much time ensuring that he lives?”

“For a genius,” Missy replied, pouring a glass of water, “sometimes you are quite slow.”

“Am I?” The Master was pretty certain he knew the real reason the Doctor was still alive and quite frankly it made him feel sick. They were probably fucking and if they weren't fucking they’d certainly thought about it. He wasn’t sure which was worse.

“The Doctor has a TARDIS – a TARDIS I’d rather like to hitch a lift home on. Do you really think I stand a chance if the Doctor isn’t breathing? Don’t worry – I have no intention of bunking in with you.”

“Shame...”

“Come now – you and I – there’s only room enough for one.”

“So – that’s your plan, save the Doctor – steal his TARDIS.”

“And I would be grateful if you stay out of it. I’m staying out of whatever it is you’ve got going on in this spaceship.”

The Master lifted his hands innocently. “Fine. I’ll still have my screwdriver back, thanks.”

“Later.”

“Ah… You don’t trust me...”

“I _know_ you.”

“Well, I don’t trust you.”

“That is exactly my point.”

*~*~*

Missy entered the barn. Bill was weeks away from waking but Missy had a feeling that this is what the Doctor would do if he were strong enough. She closed the door behind her and inched into the scattered light pouring through a couple of broken planks. They’d laid her on a pile of straw – as if the metal framework of her body had any concept of comfort. The gesture though…

It took Missy a while to stalk closer. Bill. According to the Master, they’d lived together for more than a decade. Missy should remember that but she didn’t. Her mind was a mess, as though a time law was about to be broken and the universe had wiped her memory to protect itself. Ten years was a long time… Missy wondered if the Master had been at all fond of Bill before he’d tossed her into the abattoir. _Probably_. That’s the one thing most people missed about her nature. She didn’t kill because she didn’t care. She killed people _regardless_.

She thought of that little chap at 3W. Oh, she had been fond of him too. More than fond. That hadn’t stopped her turning him into a pile of dust. It was almost as if she was testing herself – proving that fleeting emotions did not control her actions. Dr Chang. Yes. That was his name. She’d screamed it once or twice.

Missy knelt next to Bill. She understood how Cybermen where made. Beneath that shell there was almost nothing left of the flesh. This model… it was before they started refashioning the skeletal structure so that was gone. The skin – muscle… Some of it was pulsed together and re-knit into a fibre that coated the wiring. Not all of it was Bill’s either. The brain was intact – the centre of a hive with wires feeding in and out with several slots for the programme interfaces. Right now Bill was fighting the software. This early in the game about half the candidates failed the process. They’d end up locked in their human minds, screaming and screaming and screaming until they had to be thrown away.

Gods… Missy hoped Bill didn’t wake up screaming.

“You listen to me...” Missy whispered. “I know you can hear me – all your relays are up – little lights everywhere. Your name is Bill Potts.” Missy paused, her hand still on the metal. “Lies won’t help you now. Only the truth. The truth will hurt.” _This is why the Doctor lies… It’s easier. It’s also wrong._ “You died, Bill. Hole – right through the chest. You need to hang onto that memory and understand that this second life of yours is the twilight. You’re lingering but it can’t last. Me too. I feel it. So why not, at the end of everything, we have a chance to save the Doctor before we go? Hold onto that. One last act of kindness before the lights go out. You and me.”

Missy suddenly felt a stab against her ribs – like metal cutting straight through her. She placed her hand there and found nothing. Another ghost of memory. The fleeting imprint of an embrace...

*~*~*

“Are you going to follow me everywhere?” The Master asked, eyeing his tail. “Because I must warn you that you’re rather conspicuous in this new form. See you coming miles away.”

“I’ll stop following you when you stop snooping about in places you shouldn’t be.”

“Those Cybermen are coming, you realise,” the Master added. “I can feel them beneath – growing and evolving. Oh, I set them up with everything they need and this little farm just sits here waiting for the inevitable. If you chill here with the farmers you’ll die and that really isn’t acceptable. If you die – I die. Dying is for other people.”

“I’m glad you’ve finally realised that.” Missy caught up with him. “What about your grand plan? You haven’t shared that with me yet.”

“It’s that little issue of trust between us.”

“Great.” So typical. “So… I’ll keep following you then.” Missy did just that, shadowing the Master through the woods where he picked around the trees, sniffing the air. “You’re looking for the lifts.”

“Might be.” He paused, stalking around an empty spot. “Can I borrow your umbrella?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Well, can I have my screwdriver?”

“No.”

“Missy!”

Missy lifted her umbrella and offered it to him. The best he could do was sonic a few locks. When the Master took it he gave it a once over. Odd thing that it was. He wondered what on Earth would possess him to choose such an item. Although it matched the Mistress’ outfit.

“Right,” he held it up and waved it through the gap, revealing a lift door. “As you can see everything is hidden by holograms. They’re big on aesthetics, these humans. Not so good on practicality – even worse at navigation.”

“I’m sure they didn’t anticipate an army of Cybermen.”

“Or a black hole,” the Master quipped back, “but these things happens.” He picked up a stick and hammered it into the ground next to the lift so that he could find it again.

“Why aren’t they coming up now? There’s nothing stopping them from using the lifts.”

“They’re not in a rush. They are machines with infinite lifespans. The first thing they are going to do is grow themselves a proper army. They don’t just want to take this level, they want the entire ship.”

“We have to get out of here. Both of us.”

“Well if you’d stop getting in the way, maybe I’d be getting somewhere with that.”

Missy snatched her umbrella back.

*~*~*

A few days later, Missy found the Doctor sitting in the chair by the fire, staring into the flames. He was dressed in clothes from the farm while his were being mended. A thick woollen dressing coat was draped around his frame, swamping him.

Missy closed the door and edged toward him. There was a chair opposite, waiting for her. She sat down silently and looked into the fire as the dew from outside melted away.

“Why did you do it?” The Doctor asked, without looking to her.

This was the conversation that she’d been dreading. “I presume you mean Bill...” Missy replied. Of course he did.

“You went down to see her again. Every day. You sit there in the barn and you talk to her unconscious body. You care – at least on some level and yet… I want to understand...”

“Why did I offer her up for slaughter?” Missy gripped the edge of her chair so hard she thought her nails might pierce the fabric. “I can’t remember.”

“I know that but what I asked you was _why_.”

He was _furious._ Missy could feel it in the air. The shock had worn off and now he was processing… The Doctor was never more frightening than when he held his rage in. “I can guess.” She admitted. “He – _I –_ lived with Bill first. That was probably for a couple of reasons… To find out more about you and to entertain myself. You’re not the only one that takes companions for company. I’ve had my share over the years.”

“You _kill_ yours.”

“So do you.” Missy replied, a bit too fast. This was no time to test the Doctor. “I didn’t mind Bill, you know.”

“Well done, you remembered her name.”

“She used to bring me things when you weren’t looking. Every Wednesday like clockwork. A shawl. A book. Dreadful CD of Earth music. She was like a Bower Bird.”

“Why would she do that, Bill was terrified of you.”

Missy sighed. “Like all humans she had an irrational empathy complex. You locked me in a room and left me there for months on end – alone. Weeks came and went where I had nothing. You’d have gone mad in the first year but I was already mad so there was nowhere else for my mind to go but forward. You forced me to rebuild my sanity from scratch.”

He shifted awkwardly. Yes. He’d done that. “It wasn’t always easy to look at you.” The Doctor admitted.

“Likewise.”

They both shifted uncomfortably. “But what you asked me was _why_.” Missy continued. “I wasn’t lying when I said that I can’t remember this part of my life. This version of me is nearly four-hundred years in my past.”

“That long?” The Doctor finally looked at her. Oh yes, her eyes, they were so much older.

“Yes. Maybe more. This is a time when I killed to prove to myself that I could. It had already started, you see, this process... I felt my appetite for violence slipping after I returned from Gallifrey. Those years were the worst. I – I burned whole planets...”

“I heard.”

“I know. Bill… I knew she was a toy of yours so of course I cast her into the fire. I’d have calculated the most damage I could cause and executed it. That’s who I was. Most of all, he did it to punish _me._ ” Missy couldn’t keep looking into the Doctor’s eyes so she turned back to the fire. “He told me, you know, when we first met. The Master warned me that you would never let me go – never forgive me. He laughed in my face. The Master wanted to destroy our friendship forever so that I’d have no choice but to turn back to his side. Whether he succeeds or not rests on your ability to forgive.”

“Are you sorry?”

“Of _course_ I’m sorry.”

“Sorry _why_?” The Doctor snapped coldly. “Because you’re going to lose whatever this thing is between us or sorry because Bill is lying out there, a smoking corpse with a future too wretched to contemplate?”

Missy pushed herself out of the chair and moved toward him. He cast her a warning look with his eyes but Missy ignored him, kneeling on the floor in front of him with her hands settling on his knees. _Too intimate._ They’d sat like this before, decades ago in the vault. She knew that he’d remember. “Sorry _for all of it_.”

She laid her head down on his knees and closed her eyes. If there were protests, Missy didn’t want to hear them. “There was something else that I remembered.”

The Doctor had not moved at all.

“I die here.”

The Doctor’s hands found her shoulders and fished her up roughly. “What did you say?” Anger mixed with fear and something else…

“I feel it.” She reached down and produced the Master’s laser screwdriver. “When I touched this for the first time I think I saw my future – ricocheted off the past.” Missy allowed the Doctor to take it from her. He held it between his long fingers. “You’ve been wanting to take that from me for a while.”

“You were killing Time Lords with it,” the Doctor reminded her. “You could have killed me.”

“The Master tried to use it on you while you were napping, I assure you.”

“Why are you letting me take this?”

“I’ve been thinking of giving you a choice and whatever you pick – I don’t want to know.”

“Missy?”

“I _know_ that you can fuss about with the settings on that in ways I can’t detect. If I were to do it the Master will sense the subterfuge in my mind. I can’t stop him from doing that. We’re the same person. The barriers between our minds are like tinder.”

“Missy – I’m not sure I understand.”

“I want you to decide – here and now – whether we have a future. If you can’t forgive me for what’s happened then leave the screwdriver as it is. I’m going to return it to the Master before the end and we’ll see what happens. If, however, you believe that we can move forward I’m sure you can join those dots in my logic… Whatever you decide – I’m not going back to the vault. I can’t live another nine-hundred years in captivity. It’s killing me and if I’m going to die I’d rather get it over and done with. Here is as good a place as any.”

Missy slid away from his hold.

“Lie to me...” Missy whispered. “We’ve got about a week before the Cybermen make their way to this floor. Just for a week pretend that you believe that I’m your friend.”

“Missy _you are my friend_. It’s a broken friendship but a friendship all the same.” He looked at the screwdriver in his hands. “This doesn’t mean that I’m not furious with you.”

“I know. I can see that in your eyebrows.”

_It doesn’t mean that I don’t love you…_ Missy read the  rest of the unspoken words.


	3. Chapter 3

The Doctor and the Master were due for a good row and it was coming – _oh it was coming_. Ever since the Doctor had found the strength to leave his room and wander around they’d met each other in the house a few times and barely said a word. The Master was cautious and the Doctor, brooding.

Their building tension was like a storm. Missy could feel it crackling in the air around her.

Late in the afternoon, Nardole and Missy sat together in the living room reading or in Missy’s case, staring out at the scarecrows hanging in the fields. She _hated_ them. Not only were they a reminder of the Master’s severely backfired plan but also of her own misguided gift she’d given the Doctor in her youth. An army of Cybermen, after _this_? Somewhere in that gesture lurked a genuine apology but for the life of her she couldn’t remember _where_.

Danny Pink. Another name for her list. In fairness she hadn’t killed him outright. If the Doctor had asked nicely she might have even brought him back from the Nethersphere just to see the Doctor’s look of surprise. What she’d really created was a resurrection machine. A slice of Time Lord technology where _everybody lives._ Were they honestly so different? Look what the Doctor had done with his beloved wife…

The Doctor entered first and roamed over to the bookshelf where he pulled a maintenance manual free. There weren’t any great works of fiction on this ship so that hole was filled by reprints taken from the engineer’s quarter. He flipped through it, studying the lay of the ship – memorising the schematics no doubt.

The Master entered with an accompanying chill and a lecherous glance in Missy’s direction. He was so transparent sometimes and his childish attempts to stir trouble left her with a stab of embarrassment. None of them had time for this game, not with the Cybermen growing an army beneath their feet. She tried not to think about the factories in the city – churning up bodies. The city had been full of children. They’d be in metal boxes by now. Missy wondered if the Doctor was thinking about that too…

They chose opposing seats and sat without a word or acknowledgement. Fury was a mutual emotion and both held it for valid reasons.

_Fury was exhausting_ , Missy recalled. She remembered the day she’d let it go and fallen back against her TARDIS console. For the first time in years she’d been able to breathe. This Master would never understand that moment of release. He was going to hold onto all the rage and ball it up in his heart until it exploded in his face. The Doctor… Missy couldn’t read him. Maybe he’d do the same thing and clutch it tight until it destroyed him.

Nardole was watching her. Missy knew whenever his eyes were on her. She wasn’t sure  _why_ he was keeping such a close watch. Was he secretly weighing the odds of her throwing in with the Master if everything went to shit? Was he genuinely concerned about what either of the other two Time Lords would do to her? No. That last one was doubtful. Nardole had never particularly taken to her and she quite fancied him for spare parts.

It was the Master whose patience who broke first. They were all scattered around the room when he stood up suddenly and pushed his chair across the lounge room floor with an almighty _screech_. The Doctor was on his feet at once. They stood there, facing each other like a pair of lions. Nardole reached a hand toward Missy, forming a barrier to stop her from intervening.

“ _You have to let them...”_ Nardole whispered.

“You can’t touch me, Doctor...” The Master hissed, eyeing the book the Doctor had brandished as weapon without realising. “Not without hurting _her_.” He sneered in Missy’s direction without actually looking. “I’m curious – you’ve always wanted me caged. How’d you finally do it, hmm? I didn’t gift wrap myself for you, that I know.”

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” The Doctor snapped back, running a hand through his wild hair. “That I’ll tell you so you can avoid it?”

“Well _yes_ you are an idiot. I can’t retain my memories so what’s the harm in saying?”

“I didn’t entrap you, if that’s what you think. We came to an arrangement, you and I, after you bit off more trouble than you could chew. Some things never change.”

“And what, I settled for a thousand years with you as my prison guard?” The Master spat at the Doctor. “I’d rather fucking _die_ and so would she. Gods above, or do you really believe those doe-eyes of hers? I know that they’re nice and bright but she’s _me_. I’m _her._ Look at this face, Doctor then go and find it in her eyes. Whatever she’s told you is a lie. She’s waiting for you to make a mistake – to trust her and then she’ll rip your heart right out through your ribs.”

Nardole’s hand lowered across Missy’s stomach, keeping her back when she tensed. She looked over to him and Nardole shook his head. They had to let these two work through their issues. In the first and possibly only open sign of affection, Missy placed her hand over Nardole’s and sat there with him in silence. She didn’t want to watch so she turned her head back to the window and closed her eyes.

“You’ll change.”

“Time Lords _never_ change.” The Master growled. “That’s why I killed your pet. I was watching you for decades – oh you were all too cosy it was insufferable – so I organised a little reminder.”

“You _liked_ Bill.”

“I _despised_ her.”

“No you didn’t. Why else would you treat her with such brutality? You always break the things you love.”

“You _disgust_ me.”

“You really _are_ hard work young!” This is how River must have felt dealing with him in the library. There was nothing more frustrating than waiting for the past to catch the future.

“Young? _Young..._ ” The Master was hacking back a cruel laugh. “I’ve been kicking around this universe longer than you – on my own – I’ve seen its darkest pits, Doctor and the truth underneath the lies.”

“You saw too much.” The Doctor breathed. “It ruined you, for a while. Not even Time Lords are supposed to see those things. One day you’ll talk about them.”

“Oh and what – I make it through and turn into _that_? Nice pair of tits but drowning in guilt. _No thanks._ I saw you looking.”

There was a sharp _snap_. Missy heard it cut through the air while Nardole gasped beside her. Someone got hit – she wasn’t sure who. She honestly couldn’t stand to watch.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” The Master taunted.

“Speak about yourself like that again and-”

“You might as well hit me now because I’m just getting started.”

*~*~*

“You’re an _idiot_...” Missy shook her head in dismay. The Doctor’s bloody hand was laid over the table basking under the glow of the oil lamp. She turned it over, pausing at his wince, then gently pried open his fingers so that she could see the cuts that crossed his palm. A mess. A fucking mess. “Four year olds – both of you – acting like common humans! Brawling – as if that will solve anything.”

“The things he said about you… What he threatened to do...” The Doctor could barely reference the Master’s threats without his anger rising.

Missy rolled his stained sleeve up to his elbow and pushed a scrunched up ball of cloth into his hand. “Hold this,” she insisted. The fabric soaked away the worst of the blood while she retrieved a bottle of spirits. “You have a strange way of defending my honour.” Missy added. “Or did you forget, for a moment, that he and I are the same person?” The Doctor was silent. “I know the feeling. Right – give me that back now.” She took the bloodied fabric away and doused a fresh swatch in the clear liquid. “You’re not going to cry on me are you?”

“This is pointless, Missy. I’ll heal.”

“Will you, now...” Missy snapped – then held the alcohol against his skin. The burn was sharp and he tried to flinch away from her, groaning. “The state you’re in makes you vulnerable to common disease and infection – which is exactly why I told you to be careful. A broken bone here and a small cold could be your undoing.” Missy pulled away the cloth and inspected the pale flesh. “You won’t need stitches but try and stay away from smashed bottles for a while.” She took a long, slender bandage and began wrapping it around his hand – diagonally first, crossing over itself. The first few layers bled straight through.

“Where’s Nardole?”

“Tending to me,” Missy replied. “You got a few good hits in yourself. If you were trying to spark up our friendship I think you might have fallen short and landed square in _feud._ ”

“I think you might be right.” The Doctor admitted. “That really hurts, Missy.”

“I’m almost done.”

Her skills were curious but the Doctor wasn’t sure if he wanted to find out where she’d picked them up.

“I am supposed to be the doctor...” He managed a small smile as she pinned the bandage in place.

“That was a joke that went too far and you know it. There.” She added, releasing his hand. He looked like he’d been to the fucking vet.

The Doctor inspected the bandage. It was perfect. He pulled his sleeve down, trying to hide it. “I meant what I said.”

She’d heard his words. They rattled through her soul but she didn’t have the courage to acknowledge them. “I don’t need you to come to my rescue,” Missy insisted, packing the medical kit away.

“Yes you do. You _always_ do.” He replied softly.

Missy’s hands stilled and she let go of a patient sigh that she’d been holding. “Perhaps… But you don’t always come, do you? I had to learn how to save myself, Doctor. I learned the hard way and I’ve died, more times than you can imagine. Every time you close your eyes at the end you know that there’s a promise of regeneration waiting for you. It wasn’t like that for me. I had to fight – beyond the veil of death – into the realms of darkness and back out into the light. I’ve been rebuilt and remade so many times that I forgot what it was like to look Death in the face as a friend.”

“You have regenerations now...” It wasn’t quite a question because the Doctor was fearful of the answer.

“Yes. Twelve whole new ones. The High Council owed me somewhat of a debt despite wishing me dead. We came to an arrangement – like you, as I hear. Cheated a bit, didn’t you?”

“We’re on the same cycle then...” The Doctor realised.

“Didn’t you wonder why we ended up so similar, you and I? We’ve come full circle, quite literally.” Missy closed the small metal box and put the alcohol away. There were battles to come and they’d need it. “I guess you didn’t. Weren’t really paying attention, were you – that day we met at 3W?”

“You introduced yourself as a welcome droid. What was I supposed to think?”

“I had hoped the heart beats might give it away.” _Or the kiss. Who else kissed him like that but her?_ “I kept feeding you hints but as my younger self loves to remind you, there are times when you are a bit on the slow side. Actually, I thought you’d...” She paused.

“Thought _what_?” The Doctor shuffled in his chair.

“That you’d recognise me.”

He realised his mistake at once. “I noticed that you were different...” He replied, carefully.

“It’s not really the same thing though, is it?” Missy looked at him, running her gaze slowly up and down his body. He’d worn this one out – right to the bone. Taken it through its paces. “Any face – anywhere… I’d know you,” Missy explained. “I’ll always know you, Theta but you… You have trouble spotting me when I’m an inch from your nose.”

“Koschei...”

“It’s probably because you don’t practice your telepathy as often as you should.” Missy tried to brush the hurt off. “Then you’d hear the rage of a Time Lord coming from miles away.” His broken hand was reaching toward her but Missy stood up, shifting away. “I wasn’t fishing for an apology.” Then a soft laugh. “If this is the end approaching for us both we might as well be honest. If we can’t do it now...” She hesitated, resting her hand on the back of the chair. She used it as a barrier. “What’s the point of dying with unsaid words on our lips?”

“We might live yet, Missy…” He pointed out. “The Master certainly does, or you wouldn’t be standing here having this conversation.”

“I think he’s got our TARDIS parked in the lower level somewhere...” Missy turned back to face the Doctor, latching onto the distraction. “There’ll be something wrong with it, I’m sure or he wouldn’t be hanging around with us. I have to find out what he needs.”

The Doctor felt as if their previous conversation hadn’t finished. There was so much hurt swamping her blue eyes and he’d put it there. He wondered, quite seriously, how much of her violent rebellion filtered back to choices that he’d made. “You be careful with him,” the Doctor replied. “He wants things… I saw it.”

“I’m not blind.”

He watched her hand slip from the chair before she moved toward the fire. The shawl around her shoulders was barely enough to keep her warm nor was the belted-dress that the woman had loaned her. Its billowing sleeves let in all the cold while its long skirts brushed through the grass and mud outside leaving the hem a wreck.

Missy heard a soft _creak_ from the chair followed by the floorboards groaning under his steps. He loomed behind her and the air filled with his scent. In this state of his she could hear the ever-present hum of energy like the hush of a radio dish.

“I’m worried...” He whispered.

Next thing Missy knew, his arms had slid around her waist. The Doctor drew her backwards until her back was flush against him. He held her there, his chin on her shoulder competing with her halo of dark hair. It was oddly possessive – as though the Master’s words had spurred him into a primal frenzy. Time Lords were meant to be above that kind of thing. They’d never quite managed it.

“You are supposed to be sitting down,” Missy replied softly, bringing her arm up to drape over the ones he had around her waist. She tilted her head until she could look at his face. He was so close – his cheek rubbing against hers and his eyes… Whole galaxies could be lost in there. “I’ll not scrape you off the floor.”

It was impossible to know where they stood with each other from one moment to the next. “Do you remember,” he began, several breaths beyond a whisper, “when we snuck into the library after dark. Both stars had set and the moons were low, barely peeking over the mountains. You forced the lock and I climbed in first – the pair of us, trespassing.”

“We were there to steal a book that _you_ wanted to read.”

“We never did read that book, did we?”

“No.”

They both knew what had happened next. The Doctor, always the one wild one, had gripped the front of Koschei’s robes and pulled him forward, straight into Theta’s waiting lips. They’d clashed – warred – burned fiercely. _Kissing_ wasn’t an activity condoned by the academy but they’d discovered the merits of it on their own and _oh_ how they had kissed.

The memory wavered to the front of both their minds.

“Doct-” Missy didn’t have the opportunity to finish. He tilted his head and took her lips. His were parted at the start, tempting hers to follow and a moment later she couldn’t stop herself lifting a free hand to trace along his jaw as their kiss _ached_ between them.

_Falling._ That’s all they ever did. They were doing it again now.  The rocks were surely waiting but with the Doctor’s breath mixing with hers, all Missy could do to stop herself crumbling to the floor was hold on.

T he Doctor’s arms tightened at her waist. Her hands settled on his shoulders then, one kiss at a time, draped around his neck. She was flush to his figure and through the thin farm clothes Missy was able to feel the rhythm of his hearts against her breasts. They were faltering. Stepping out of time. He was still dying…

“Doctor...”

His hands slid up her back, splayed against her spine. He must be able to feel the shiver running down it. “Why are you running?” He murmured, trying to kiss her again but tilted her head away. “ I thought this was what you wanted?”

_It was._ “...your head...” Missy whispered.

The Doctor looked into Missy’s eyes and saw a golden reflection swirling in their depths.

“It’s not healing...” She added, untangling herself enough to bring her hands to his face. Missy tenderly made him turn slightly and dip down so that she could see. “The most frustrating thing about this face of yours is how tall you are.” Missy added, casually.

“Missy – leave it,” he reached up, attempting to slide her hands away but she refused. “I don’t care about my head.”

“Well _I do_. Stop that.” Missy fixed him with a firm stare. “Let me tell you – if you don’t start thinking with your head instead of your – well you might just be the first Time Lord to shag himself into regeneration!  Oh, you think that’s terribly funny?” Missy’s frown deepened as he took a step back, chuckling. Every time the idiot moved his head another gasp of time energy streamed up through the slice. “Bloody hell – stop that!” She poked him sharply in the shoulder. He recoiled.

“Have I sprung a leak?”

“You’re two squares short of a kilt, that’s what you are… Oy!” Missy ducked out of the way when he tried to catch her again. “I’m _serious_ and you’re _reckless._ Don’t smile at me. That might work on your mayflies but it doesn’t do anything for me.”

The Doctor’s grin broadened and some of his grey hair flopped over the scar on his forehead. That did nothing to stop the swirling glow that was strengthening in a worrying fashion. “It does a little, Missy.”

_Curse him._ “ How do we fix your head – unless you  _want_ to regenerate.”

“I don’t think you _can_ fix it,” the Doctor admitted. “I’ve been holding this regeneration back for so long the normal rules don’t appear to apply. You’ve gone all cross...”

She certainly had. Proper Scottish cross. “I’m going to find Nardole. You’re not telling me everything and I don’t have time to torture it out of you.”

“Missy – it’s late. Missy!”

*~*~*

It wasn’t difficult to find Nardole. He was still with the Master, trying to wrestle a bandage around the  squirming Time Lord’s arm but that required going without a jacket for a few days – something the Master was trying to negotiate himself out of for fashion reasons despite bleeding profusely over the floorboards.

“Go away, Missy...” Nardole warned, like a zoo keeper with a dangerous animal.

“I need to speak with you.”

“Now really is not a good time. You’re being difficult. The – the other you.”

“Insufferable android!” The Master scowled, when Nardole finally caught him by the arm and dragged him over to a table with considerable strength.

A smile caught the edge of Missy’s lips. She knew all about how strong Nardole was. Not even a Time Lord could compete against a synthetic shell.  She’d lost track of how many times it had fallen on Nardole to carry her somewhere while the Doctor watched on, trying not to hate himself.  A few times she’d even done it on purpose. “Man up. You’re yapping away like a Pomeranian. It’s uncouth. Let him help you for heaven’s sake or you won’t even make it to your next regeneration.”

“I want my screwdriver back, Missy.” He hissed. This time he allowed Nardole to divest him of the jacket but only because he couldn’t stand being compared to a small dog. Companions were puppies.

“Today was a perfect demonstration of why the answer is ‘no’.”

T he Master cried out sharply as Nardole extracted a sheet of glass from inside his arm with a fresh torrent of blood that fell over their feet in a wave. Missy touched her arm as a ripple of pain flared up. Different body – same mind.

Nardole’s swearing was so on point that the Master was left dumbfounded.  Missy backed away until she ran into the closed door. She didn’t  _like_ seeing her past self injured. It evoked a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. Fear…

Missy waited silently while the stitches went in. The Master was taking a swig of the medical grade alcohol for every one of them. It was easily enough to kill a human but for a Time Lord with a drinking problem – maybe it’d mellow him out a bit.

By the time Nardole was done, the Master was laid out on the table – one arm wrapped in bandages with his sleeve rolled up past his elbow. His other hand clutched the bottle to his forehead. He was n’t interested in either of them at the moment – muttering something incoherent about pond scum. Maybe he  _was_ drunk.

Nardole strolled over and nodded at the door. They exited silently, Nardole wiping his bloodied hands on a rag. Neither of them said a word until they were in the next room. “What is it?” Nardole asked,  concerned by how serious Missy looked.

Missy felt another whopper of a headache coming on. They were getting worse every day she stayed here. She was absolutely certain that being around your previous time line created quantum disturbances that manifested in one hell of a hangover mimicry. “ Did I just have a fight with the Doctor over myself?”

“Of all the questions I’d prepared myself for, that was not one of them.” Nardole tossed the rag into the fire. “But yes, seeing as you asked.”

“Wonderful. That has to be a new low.”

“Oh no – I think you hit that earlier when Master over there described in extraordinary detail how he w-”

“Thank you – I’m trying to forget that happened.” Missy stopped him with a genuinely tired look.

“Well, what did you actually come here to ask me, Missy?”

“It’s the Doctor.”

“Naturally.”

She wasn’t entirely sure she liked the insinuation lurking beneath his tone. “He’s holding back a regeneration. That’s something you really shouldn’t do. I need to know when it started…”

“He didn’t exactly advertise it,” Nardole replied, “but I suspect it was that business with the vault.”

Missy’s head snapped up. “What…?”

“I think so. That’s about when it started.”

“That’s not right. He fiddled with the machine – gave me a bit of a nasty zap but-” But Missy was thinking about it… She took herself back, over seventy years ago, to that moment. He’d looked right into her eyes and allowed her to linger there on the edge – believing that he was truly about to kill her. That’s the thing the others never understood. _Missy thought she was going to die._ For a moment her end was a fact and her oldest _whatever-they-were_ was her executioner.

“ _It makes no difference…_ That’s the worst thing anyone has ever said to me.” Missy whispered, lost somewhere.

“I was there,” he reminded her gently.

“ _Friendship makes all the difference in the world._ I was going to say that to him before – well – I’d hoped that would be the last thing I _ever_ said.” Her hand went to her head, pushing back against the pain. “I didn’t see what happened when he pulled the lever.”

“I did. There was a flicker where the current flowed back up the handle into his arm. Obviously it wasn’t the full load or he’d have been dead there and then but I saw him flinch. You were asleep for a good week after that and he kept himself in the TARDIS. Are you okay?” Nardole leaned over, extending his hand toward Missy’s head but she retreated. She was retreating from _everyone_ and Nardole was truly starting to worry about her. “I have something for that.” He pointed at her head.

Missy took a deep breath and steadier herself. “No one has anything for this.” She assured him. “Breaking time laws comes with consequence. At the moment that consequence is only a headache. I’m worried it’ll blossom into something more fatal. Don’t touch me! Nardole! I’ll rip your ear off-” Her protests got softer as Nardole sat her down. “Don’t be nice to me.” She added, quietly. “It’s fucking unsettling.”

“Language.”

Missy’s gaze rolled up so slowly that it dripped with warning. “The Doctor has _quite_ an extensive repertoire of colourful language.”

“Then swear in Gallifreyan.” Nardole quipped straight back. “He doesn’t like the humans to hear it. They’re skittish, you see. Swear a bit and they all become convinced that they’re going to die.”

“Nardole – this is hardly part of the test. That ended when the blue thing put a hole in Bill.”

“Did it?”

Missy wasn’t sure what the answer was.

“Do you have your own room?” Nardole eyed the Time Lord carefully. She’d spent so much time taking care of the Doctor that he was pretty certain she’d forgotten to carve a spot out for herself. “Didn’t think so. Now hod on a minute, where are you swanning off to?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Missy escaped before Nardole had a chance to follow.

He looked at the empty door for a long time. He felt like the Master was edging closer and Missy was drifting away. Was that how it worked? Could you only have one version of reality at a time?

*~*~*

Missy sat in the hay, propped up against the old wooden slats that comprised the back of the barn. The moon was up again, pushing through the gaps with its silver light. Beams of it divided her face leaving her a _Braque_ of grey and black.

Bill was on the floor to her left. The Cyber-body hadn’t moved at all since they’d arrived but every night the lights on the front panel changed their pattern. She was a computer – going through hundreds of boot logs and all any of them could do was wait for it to finish.

“Where were we?” Missy began, allowing her head to fall back against the wood. “Oh yes – our first Summer in Gallifrey. You’d have liked it. Overt head pieces were in that year and all students experimented with ultraviolet embroidery in their clothes. Except for the Doctor, of course. He was a bit on the poor side.” Missy shook her head fondly. “He trailed me around everywhere. Practically a stalker but with nice eyes. The same eyes, actually. Now what you asked about was the academy. _Yes_ , it’s a bit like your university but much _much_ bigger.”

She was slowly working her way through all the questions Bill had asked when she’d been locked up in the vault on Earth. At the time Missy had trailed her fingers over the piano keys and feigned disinterest. Bill stayed – sometimes for hours, talking even if Missy never replied. It was as though the silly human had it in her head to heal the Time Lord with utter ramblings. Now Missy found herself clutching to the same false hope.

At the back of her throat, fear remained. _What if this was it for Bill?_ The Doctor hadn’t seen her yet and when he was finally strong enough to leave the house Missy was terrified that this would be the piece of straw to break him for good.

Eventually Missy choked back a sob. The tears were nothing to her lungs clutching together, strangling her from the inside. Bill was all of her mistakes distilled into an epitaph. It physically hurt to look at her. It hurt even more to leave her alone in the barn, night after night as she had been left in the vault.

Missy swallowed back another wave of tears. _Oh._ Now she understood why the Doctor came and sat at her feet, watching her play for all those nights. _She was his..._


	4. Chapter 4

“Morning Nardole.”

The Doctor was _prickly_. There wasn’t really any other word for it. He used to get this way when he and River fought. It was his reflex. Put on a suit – layer on the sarcasm and hope for the best. Well, Nardole saw right through that shit like he saw through the room and its conspicuous absence. _Missy._

“Well at least your head is still on. Thought I might find it around the wrong way – or green. Green happens, you know.” Nardole replied, nodding at the nasty gash beneath the Doctor’s hairline. It was angry and red but not leaking time energy so that was an improvement. “And that hand needs another look in.” Something that would have been done by now if the other Time Lord wasn’t off sulking. “Where is she? Has she been gone _all night_? Doctor? Don’t avoid me. Pacing _is_ avoiding.”

“You sound like my wife...” he muttered irritably.

“Nope. Your wife sounds like me.” He corrected. “And you never answered the question.”

“I haven’t seen Missy since she ran off to see you.” The Doctor finally admitted. It was the first night since they’d arrived at the farm that Missy hadn’t slept most of it in his room – laid chastely beside him on the bed. He had spent many hours trying to work out what caused her to run. It wasn’t just his head – or their distraction. Surely not. There was more going on with Missy than she’d let on.

“Are you going out today?” Nardole asked, as the Doctor checked himself in the mirror and then reached for his coat.

“I think it’s time I did, yes.” He replied. “There’s not much point laying here with an army of Cybermen on their way up. The solution isn’t going to present itself, Nardole – we have to go and find it.”

“The solution is the one thing Missy and the Master agree on in this whole mess.” Part of Nardole thought they were right. “Run away. It’s not such a terrible idea.” He added quickly, when the Doctor rolled his eyes impatiently.

“Running away is a bad habit, believe me – I know...”

“But in this case, they might have the right idea.”

“Intellectually it’s only _one_ opinion.”

“No one, not even you, can take on an entire army with a couple of screwdrivers and half a dozen rifles. Not to mention, of course, that the arse end of this ship is going to rust off before the front pulls away from the black hole. Even if _by some miracle_ it manages to edge free of the gravity well, the structural integrity will be so warped that it’ll snap apart the first time anyone kicks the engines into gear. This place has had it, Doctor. One way or another, everyone’s going to have to run.”

“I’m getting pretty tired of people looking at me like I’m already dead.” The Doctor squared off against Nardole.

“And you, Doctor, are going out of your way to avoid the truth.”

“Not any more. I’m on my way to see Bill.”

Nardole swallowed. “She woke up this morning. A few of the farmers have tried to bring her things but they’re frightened. Understandable,” he shifted, “considering what this place is.”

*~*~*

Missy had never backed away from anything faster in her life. The worst possible face for Bill to see right now was hers. Try as she might to act like the Doctor she couldn’t actually _be_ the Doctor. Not for Bill. Bill needed the real deal.

So, when the lights came on Missy fled the barn and took herself to the laundry where she retrieved her original clothes. Wearing them helped to ground her thoughts. It was calming – an external reminder of who she was. One that she could touch. Shame she’d left her hat on another level of the ship but a few coats of makeup later, Missy nearly felt like herself. Except for the dull throb at the back of her head. That wasn’t going anywhere.

With the Doctor on his way to the barn, Missy decided to go for a walk. To get to the woods she had to pass the eerie rows of Cybermen, tied to stakes between the crops. She strolled right up to one of them and stared at the cloth covering its ruined face. Flashes of memory tried to fight their way to the surface but they couldn’t quite make it. Instead she was left with a sick feeling in her gut.

_Why – why had she resurrected Cybermen on Earth after this?_ Of all the things she could have done with her new regeneration, it seemed an odd way to start. Frankly, she’d be happy if she never saw another one as long as she lived.

Missy moved away from the fields and entered the forest that lapped around the edges of the farm. It rang false, of course. The trees were programmed to grow in a particular spot – each one keeping to a randomised pattern laid out by an unimaginative engineer long dead.  Even the grass grew to specification.  The concealed order infuriated her.  _It reminded her of a prison._

Then it rained – from nowhere. There was a rumble of thunder and the sprinklers overhead drizzled. Missy closed her eyes and let it fall on her face.  Rational logic took over and she unfurled her umbrella, snapping it to life above her head. Sure, it was a sonic device capable of great technological feats that doubled as a weapon when your past fucked with your future but at the end of the day, it was still a perfectly good umbrella.

_This is what running away felt like._ Because, thought Missy sharply to herself, let’s be real – that’s exactly what she’d done. The Doctor was about to face Bill and she couldn’t stand  the thought of being there  beside him . It wasn’t that she was frightened of him lashing out… He’d have done that already if he was going to. It was his silence that she couldn’t stand.

The rain fell heavier. It drizzled off the metal prongs of her umbrella in tiny streams. She spun it, around and around so that the rivers flew off for her amusement. Then she walked deeper into the forest, marvelling at the detail they went to for this artificial world. Yes, they’d definitely intended humans to live down here for many generations while their starship explored the abyss.  There were a lot of them out there like this, floating in the void – never reaching their destinations. Humans made the same mistake over and over and left corpses sprawled out into oblivion.

“Well aren’t you just a twisted Mary Poppins fantasy...”

M issy’s eyes rolled right up to stare at the inside of her umbrella. She could hear him thundering through the undergrowth behind, battering it away clumsily. “What’s it to you?” Missy hissed, about to turn around when the Master grabbed her arm and slammed her sideways into the nearest tree. He rolled straight into her, pressing her body painfully against the bark with  h is weight. Her instinct was to swat him with the umbrella but he was ready for it, catching her wrist which he slammed back  onto the bark  again and again  until she dropped the umbrella entirely. “What the  _hell_ do you think you’re doing? Let me go!”

He didn’t. The Master had been waiting to corner his future self for some time – away from the android who always found a way to head him off. “ No – I don’t think so.”

M issy immediately dragged her knee up to shove him but the Master slid his leg between hers and left her laid out  across the tree, unable to move.

“Happy to do this all day honey but all I want is a word.”

She doubted that. His thoughts were all but visible on the air. “ If you’ve got something to ask – ask it.”

“Two words,” the Master breathed, pressing his thigh a little harder against her. “First word _sonic_...”

“As if I would be stupid enough to carry it around.”

“Am I supposed to believe that?” His eyes swept over her, not quite lecherous but he was getting close.

T he rain fell on both of them – catching in the Master’s eyelashes and making his eye-liner run. Hers was no doubt doing the same. She felt beads of water rolling between her breasts and pooling inside the corset. It was freezing and sent an involuntarily shiver through her body which he felt.

“I _don’t_ believe you.” The Master replied, and started to run his hands over her clothes – searching for the screwdriver.

Missy allowed him to manhandle her, mostly because she wanted him to panic about the fate of his precious screwdriver. His hands weren’t gentle. When they reached her waist they slid under her belt – snapping it free. It fell into the bra cken at her feet. Next he was at her skirts, kneeling as he ran his hands down each of her legs in turn and finally her boots which puzzled him so thoroughly that he gave up and stood in front of her, glowering.

Free of his hold, she remained against the tree but now she was lounging with a lazy smile on her lips. His frustration was her amusement. “So now you’re thinking  _where the hell is it_ ? And I’m thinking,  _never going to tell you..._ ”

“Why did you give it to him? Have I actually gone properly insane? Missy!” He was stalking from side to side, fuming – about to fire off into one of his rages and she was just laying there, eyes agleam like a fucking Adder. “We are the same fucking person!” He continued, coming right up to her until their faces were less than an inch apart. “Do you want to die here – is that what you want? To die adrift on some run down piece of _shit_ spacecraft? Turned into a Cyberman? Really? Is that what you want?  Our hearts fed through a syphon and forged into a camp box of circuitry? I might have been out of the loop for the last few hundred years but I know _us_ and if there’s one thing that we’re not big on – it’s _dying_.”

Missy reached forward and placed her hand on his chest. The fabric was wet from the rain and he was cold – like her. She could feel his hearts raging beneath so full of life. He lived every second to the extreme and that was wild. His perspective was so far removed from hers that she knew they’d never be able to come to an accord. Not if she didn’t lie to him.

“I’ve no intention of dying and as we’ve established, your survival is a fixed point. So, dear...” She drawled, as his eyes wandered briefly to the hand she had on his chest. Missy was walking her fingers down his buttons. “What’s more likely? That I simply _gave_ our screwdriver to the Doctor and relinquished the only true leverage we have over him _or_ that I hid it from both of you to stop either of you interfering with my plan s?” Her fingers were nearly at the waistband of his pants. Typical male. He could only think with one thing at a time.

“Really – you hid it?” He stammered.

“And I fully intend to give it back to you – if you ask nicely.”

T he Master shifted. Now  _she_ was the one who had him pinned. Perhaps not against a tree but certainly between common sense and sordid desire. “ And uh – how does one ask nicely?”

He was leaning in, considering her lips. Missy let him get right in close before she purred,  _“No...”_ Now he pulled back, even more confused than before. “I’ll tell you when it’s time to ask.”

Missy slipped out from between him and the tree – collected her belt and the umbrella then continued on her walk. Her younger self clearly had _fucking_ on the menu and she was pretty  damn certain that she was the first Time Lord to wonder if that was a faux pas or straight up universe-ending paradox.

H e might even be surprised to learn that it wasn’t only him that felt the rumble of desire. They were, after all, the same person.

*~*~*

The Doctor was perched on the roof of the farm. Missy caught sight of him the moment she emerged from the forest. That stupid, stick insect of a Time Lord! He was  _always_ climbing things to avoid his tumbling emotions. There was something about the threat of a drop under his feet that glued him to reality.  Not Missy. She hated this pension of his. Even when they were barely more than children she’d had to rescue him from god knows what. The worst place he’d climbed was  her father’s manor house. He’d loved the sweeping grey rooves edged in copper with all those odd animal grotesques poking out from the joins. She’d caught him having a conversation with one once – there for hours chatting away to a misshapen puddle of metal – happy as you like.

M issy had understood his fascination then, though perhaps not the perilous height but the view was worth any primal fear she harboured. This was different. The farm house was plain and the roofing made of wooden shingles infested with dry rot.  Part of it was charred and redone by a human with considerably less skill than the original uninspired hands.

T he only way to reach him was from a window in the attic. He’d already forced the lock. All Missy had to do was reach out with her palms flat to the filthy glass and give it a good push. It resisted, stuck in the swollen frame and then all at once gave free sending her lurching forward  with a huff.

M issy clambered onto the table  beneath it , pulling up her layered skirts.  She’d give anything for her leather pants  and fitted shirt . The Master was right, this particular outfit was something she wore specifically  _for_ the Doctor, not that she’d ever let him know that. When she was off ruling planets and exploring worlds she dressed  practically.  As much as she liked the extra height, heels were no good in an emergency.

N ever mind, she had both legs through now. Her boots found purchase on the narrow ledge, giving her just enough room to awkwardly turn and grab hold of the window box. Missy tried not to look at the steep lay of the roof around her – or the drop at the end. If she was going to die on this bloody ship she sure as hell wasn’t going to do it falling off a roof in search of Theta in one of his moods.

He never looked back once. Missy knew that she was making a hell of a racket getting down to him – sliding over the grey shingles which snapped off splinters into her skin whenever they got the chance.  A gutter  met her feet at the end. It bowed and dipped with her weight but held. Missy let go of a breath she’d been holding and took a moment to steady herself.

There he was… A wave of silver hair billowing to her right. He was laying against the roof with his hands laced together on his stomach. The Doctor was back in his old suit. It was as frayed as he was. Carefully, Missy shuffled up next to him leaving half a foot between them. Her wild mane was caught on the roof in places while the rest rippled with the wind. They lay there together – silent – watching the holographic clouds toss and play – darken and fade.

“I lied.”

Missy turned her head to look at him. It was the first thing that he’d said since her arrival and even then his eyes remained locked with the sky. “To whom?”

Another stretch of silence. In its depths Missy realised that she could hear the Cyber factories on the floor below. She’d rather have drums…

“The mayfly.”

“Bill,” corrected Missy quietly.

“I promised that I could fix her.”

“That’s the problem with lying,” Missy replied. “It’s second nature to you. You lie to be kind. Lie in search of hope. Lie to hide the truth. Lie to yourself... Those lies catch up to you.” She’d been warning him about that since the beginning.

“And you don’t?”

“I really try not to.” Missy was still looking at his profile. His gaze was set firmly up but there was a slight reflection along the edge of his eye that might belong to a tear.

“Perhaps the Cybermen have a point.” He continued. His fingers twitched against each other. He was was fussing with his ring, turning it over and over. “Emotion is a scourge.” The Doctor nearly lept out of his skin when her hand slammed into his chest. It had been a while since anyone had walloped him so hard. “Missy!” He coughed out a reply. “I thought you were worried about my health!”

She was  _furious_ . “ I don’t want to  _ever_ hear you say that again.”

F inally he turned his head to the side and found her blue eyes piercing. “You’re serious. Scottish serious.”

“We’re at the end of everything and you’re starting to frighten me. Of course I’m serious.”

“Frighten you?” The Doctor asked. Those light curls of hair kicked up into his face.

Missy nodded slowly.

“Missy – we’ve known each other forever...”

He was hurt. Well  _fine_ , so was she. “ I’m well aware of how long we’ve known each other and if we’re getting technical, I’ve known you longer than you’ve known yourself.” She shrugged lightly. “Older.”

“There’s probably a story in that.”

“Every now and then you lose faith in the _idea_ of the Doctor. This ‘fiction’ you’ve created from bits of your true self is a cherry-picked construct for the universe to marvel at. Well, not me.  I marvelled at you first – when you were face down in mud without a hope in all the world. _That’s_ who you really are. _Theta_.” She reached over and prodded him sharply in the side. He squirmed but didn’t flee. “A boy who stole a box because he was scared of everything but the stars.”

“Then why are you scared, Missy?”

“Because you’re not afraid. If anything I’d say you’re _comfortable_ with our approaching deaths. That can only mean one thing.” Missy paused long enough to give him the opportunity to call her a liar but he didn’t. “Your ‘grand plan’ that you allude to but never share is simply to die with a bit of grace. Ah. I’m right – aren’t I. It’s not only Bill you’ve been lying to – it’s all of us – most of all yourself.”

“Missy… There aren’t a lot of options here.”

“Oh _come on_. You’ve been in worse scraps than this.” This time when Missy reached for  him it was slowly. She let the back of her hand lay on his chest – well above his hands. “It’s this body. You’ve been rough with it, sweetie. Like your TARDIS you never bother with any basic maintenance.”

T he Doctor’s eyebrows met in a frown. He reached up, very tenderly lifting her hand. Turning it over. “What happened to your hand?”

Missy followed his gaze and saw her skin covered in grazes and dried blood.

“Don’t lie...”

“I didn’t.” Missy whispered. She’d said nothing at all.

There was no need. The Doctor already knew it had something to do with the Master. “A maverick angel...” The Doctor murmured.

“Pardon?”

He pulled out a plum silk handkerchief from his pocket and began wrapping it around Missy’s injured hand. “You are.”

Missy eyed him sadly. “That’s the problem with you… You never understood me. You  _fancied_ me. Loved me, even, back then.” Missy drew her hand out of his hold. “Not that it matters any more. What are you doing up here, hmm? Instead of down in the barn with Bill...”

“She was only awake for a moment. What were you doing last night?” Missy avoided the question. “Are you changing or regressing, Missy? You have his eyes.” Missy turned her head away and looked across the empty roof. “The first set of eyes… I wonder if those are the same hearts too.”

The pain in her head branched across her mind, splitting her apart. She swallowed it all.  Missy sat up carefully. “ No, Doctor. New face, new body, new hearts – fresh set of eyes. This  _state_ that I’m in is not stable. I’m the lie.  _He_ is the truth.”

He sat up too, turning towards her as much as his precarious perch would allow. “Why are you saying this?”

“Because you need to understand. I crave power. Dominion. Knowledge. Secrets and the forbidden corners of the universe. Your pets think I’m evil but I am _so much more than that._ ”

“No.”

Missy shuffled across the roof until her skirts were laying over his legs and their  thumbs touched. A tiny flicker of gold jumped out of his skin. “ Those years in the vault were just a game, honey. A dream to lull you into trust so that you’d let me go. Here we are – see? It worked.”

“No.”

“Just because you want it to be real doesn’t mean that it was.”

“Is this what you do to _him_?” The Doctor tilted his head curiously. “Does he believe it?”

_Sometimes she hated the Doctor._ “It’s quite easy to lie to yourself, as you well know.  Can we get down from the roof now?” The Doctor blinked questioningly at her. “Heights bother me.”

* ~*~*

The Master discovered the cellar. Interesting. You could  _always_ rely on humans to leave vegetation lying around in barrels to ferment. Such a weird habit. The quality varied, of course and spaceship vino was inevitability a disappointing brew but liquor was liquor.

He paused. Fingertips grazing the outside of a bottle, disturbing a layer of dust.

“It’s _incredible_ ,” the Master tapped the glass, “when you walk the earth shakes...” He gripped the bottle by the neck and yanked it free – turning around with it cradled in his arm. “That’s a nice way of saying your shoes squeak and I’m amazed you don’t get shot on approach more often.”

The cellar was dark and the Doctor was halfway down the aging stairs. The only light came from the oil lantern which the Master had set on the stone floor, surrounded by a halo of its own light, like a solitary star.

“Oh – so sad – or is that anger? I heard the robo-pet woke up. How was _that_? Bit of a shock. I imagine. Five years old...” He shifted gears, jarring the conversation. “What do you think – too early?” The Master considered the wine.

The Doctor was really trying to cut through the Master’s ill-paced bravado and find his friend beneath. He wondered  what would happen if the silence lasted long enough...


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. I don't know why I wrote this. This is meant to be a fix-it filler tag fic and instead I think I broke everything. This is why I'm not allowed to have nice things.

T he Doctor sat on the steps, four from the bottom, maintaining a safe distance. The Master preferred the cold stone floor, spread out beside his lamp with the wine rack at his back. He was half way through his second bottle – the Doctor was tepidly inching his way down his first.  There was a draft  coming from somewhere. It kicked at the flame sending their world a-shiver.

T ypical – that the Master had chosen a cellar as his haunt. It was eerily close to a crypt which made the Doctor flinch at the irony. Oh… If the Master actually stopped raging for a moment and  _listened_ to his future he might not be so fond of enclosed spaces.

“We’re not going to have a heart-to-heart,” said the Master, swirling the contents of his bottle. He liked the sound of it swooshing around the glass. “Besides, I’m sure _she’s_ covered everything worth saying.”

The Doctor was playing with the cork from his bottle. Anything to avoid drinking it. “It bugs you, doesn’t it – not knowing what Missy has said to me?  Took me a while to work it out but  _that’s_ what irks you in particular. You’re not in control. You’re just a  _blip_ in the time stream and  _she_ is the inevitable end.”

The Master drank deep. He nearly gagged trying to swallow the sediment-laden contents. “That’s  _not_ it.”  He reached lazily behind him and dragged another bottle free. The cork popped off and bounced into nowhere. 

“What then?”

He lifted his free hand, sweeping it through the air – indulging in theatrics for the sake of them. “Mostly it’s the accent.”

“We match.” The Doctor replied, repeating Missy’s admission from decades ago.

“ _That’s_ why it bothers me.  Mind you,” he continued, sniffing the wine. “It’s not as bad as your face. Where _did_ you scrape that one up from? A discount store in the Enchellon Rift? Did you put all those lines on it or did it come pre-distressed.”

“You like it more than you let on. That’s the brilliant thing about being your future confidant.”

“I would rather fuck myself, as we’ve established.” The Master held up his arm so that the Doctor could see the enormous stretch of bandage running up his wrist. He was still rightly pissed that he couldn’t wear his jacket. “And you’re jealous – which is both cute and confusing as a concept. My my… This is why all those pesky time laws exist. We’re not meant to end up in situations like this. It’s like an Escher board. Looks okay at a glance but nothing actually works.”

“This is an accident,” the Doctor replied. “I’m curious,” he continued, “did you actually _have_ a plan to escape the ship or were you simply bored and decided to play Frankenstein with the resident humans to pass the time?”  Silence. “And you were afraid of using the lifts in case something happened to your TARDIS.” Another stretch of nothing. “Indecision is a killer. You should be thanking me for showing up.”

“How is this better? You put me on the menu. Sure, it was a nice reveal but as a long term plan it was pretty fucking stupid. Why not go crazy and make the definition of food three hearts only? Then _everyone_ would be safe.”

The Doctor chewed the bottom of his lip. Yes, that probably would have been a better plan in hindsight. “ I was working with a concussion.”

“And is this your idea of a weekend activity? Dragging my future self around, pets in tow, perusing distress calls for a lark?”

The Doctor shrugged in reply and took another sip of wine. His choice of entertainment sounded almost callous on his lips. “ I honestly didn’t come down here to bicker with you.”

“No?”

“No. I thought we could talk. We didn’t really get the chance last time we met.”

“Well – someone has to run the country.”

“I’m President of the World.”

The Master scoffed. “You’re always president of  _something_ . Why don’t you mix it up a bit – go for ‘emperor’ or Pharaoh – that’d be a lark.  I can almost see it. Bit of eye-liner – decent sized head piece. Organs in jars – I’ll help with that.”

“What did you do to Missy?”

“Uh Doctor…” His annoyance was palpable. “We’re cats. We fight. It was a _scratch_.”  The Master was ever so slightly fascinated by the Doctor’s dark eyes. “You really _hate_ it when I’m alone with myself. What are you more afraid of, I wonder? Killing or fucking?”

The Doctor’s eyes turned even darker. “ There are many valid reasons why you shouldn’t do  _either_ of those things.”

“Look – I’m happy to go back to my reign of terror on this ship – or you could simply leave me alone down here to work my way through this collection of truly abysmal wine. You’re the one who seems intent on playing twenty questions. If we’re going to do that, by the way, I have a few of my own.” The Master chugged a third of the bottle in one go. He’d picked up the habit in his year of politicking and now he couldn’t shift it. Ah well, next regeneration maybe. “Just how long have you wanted to dip your end in, eh?”

He fought against the rise of colour in his cheeks. This was  _not_ the conversation he came down here to have. It was too easy for the Master to lead. Seventy years with Missy in a vault had certainly taught him that. She’d learned more about him than he’d learned about her. Another nine-hundred years and the Doctor was pretty sure he’d be  _hers_ not the other way around.

“Was it the tits that did it – no? The accent then… Oh gosh, Doctor. By that look I’d say this little crush of yours pre-dates the crazy hat lady. Then again, I _thought_ I caught you previous regeneration looking.”

“Actually, he was a couple back.” The Doctor replied, stiffly.

“Really burning through them, then.”

“Accidents happen.”

“Gosh...” The Master used the bottle to vaguely point in the Doctor’s direction. “I really did a number on you though. Missy only has to bat her eyelashes and you follow along. Maybe I’ve been going about this all wrong. All I had to do in the end was don a skirt and you came around to my way of thinking. Tell me… Has she convinced you to murder anyone for her yet? Did she _try_...”

_Yes. She had. Murder was the solution to so many of her puzzles._ “It wasn’t like that.”

“Are you sure?”

_No. He wasn’t sure._

“Okay, let’s make it exciting,” the Master continued. “Maybe she’ll ask you to kill _me._ ”

In a way she already had. The Doctor still had the Master’s screwdriver but he hadn’t decided what to do with it yet. “ Maybe.” The Doctor came down here to  _forgive_ the Master for what he did to Bill because if he didn’t, what sort of future did Missy have? Forgiveness was vital to healing but at this point in his time stream, the Master  _wasn’t_ sorry. He hadn’t even done it for a real purpose. It was all a laugh to him and it made the Doctor’s blood boil. “You killed my friend.”

“Hardly. I made her immortal. All shiny and new. _You_ killed her, Doctor, with a great big hole through the chest. You always _were_ careless with you r strays.”

The Doctor swallowed, touching his chest.  _Promise, you won’t get me killed._ “The metal heart I understand. That was kind. If your intention was to turn Bill into a Cyberman why didn’t you do it at the start?”

“Timing.” The Master’s lip curled cruelly. “The mind doesn’t last very long in its new shell. Even the strongest fade. I wanted you to watch her slip away.”

The Doctor was gripping the neck of the bottle so hard he thought it might snap beneath his fingers. “She asked for her mother, when she woke up. A young girl crying for her mother and all she had was my stupid face.” The Doctor hissed through the painful memory. It tore him apart. He’d wanted to rage at Missy – to tell her what happened but that wasn’t fair.  _He_ was the one who needed to hear the truth. “ It’s the Cyber programming. It reset her mind. She’s working her way through her memories from the beginning. Bill was about  four when she work up this morning. Just a child. You had a child once.”

Now it was the Master whose eyes slipped into dark voids. That was a low blow. They had an agreement.  _Never speak about their children._ “Shut up before you say something you regret.”

“Missy won’t remember.”

“You will.”

“Your child is lost, Koschei-”

“- _never_ call me that.” He brandished the bottle as if considering slamming it in the Doctor’s face.

“-so you run around the universe, working through your pain by inflicting it on everyone else-”

“Get. Out.”

“-when really, the only person you want to hurt-”

“Last warning.”

“-is me.”

* ~*~*

Missy pressed herself up against the barn door. The rain was heavy. It fell over her in sheets, tugging her thick hair from its ties until it hung limply at her shoulders, a mess of frizz. She was soaked through but at this point it was impossible to get any colder. Her hands curled around the bolt holding the doors closed. Sometimes it felt like a deadlock – never to be moved and then a moment later it started to slide in her hold as if her mind were pulling it free.

_Clink._

She start l ed away from the door as it swung slightly inwards. Open. Her hearts thundered in her chest. One then the other. Over and over. Her ears pricked up, listening for movement. With the skies cloaked in heavy cloud, the world lulled in twilight. A warm glow came from inside. Missy stepped into the light.

Cyber-Bill was sitting up, warming herself by the light of the lanterns left to comfort her. It was ridiculous, of course. Cybermen had no senses with which to detect temperature but the act of it was born of a human’s primal need for comfort. The light was something they held up against their dark caves while the world howled beyond.  Even their star was nothing but a lantern in the night.

“H-hello?” Missy asked, the words catching in her throat on the way out.

Cyber-Bill reached forward curiously, watching the light play over the gloves as if they were hands. “Are yoooou my muhh-mmy?”

Missy felt both her hearts smash to the floor. This wasn’t Bill. This was a child.  The urge to run returned and for a moment, it froze her in place.

T he robot had made a little mound out of the hay – like a protective ring. Water dripped down the walls, leaking through the gaps in the barn like tears. They glistened in the soft light. “ No...” Missy breathed back her reply. “I’m not your mother. I’m – I’m a  _friend_ .” All she could do was watch as Bill tapped the glass shell over the flame.  Missy stepped closer. “What’s your name?”

“Billl-lll.”

M issy could almost  _see her_ . See  _through_ the nuts and bolts to the little girl sitting on the floor, alone and afraid. She took another step.

“The maaaan caaame.” Bill continued, lifting her head up to look at Missy. She had no idea who Missy was. To her, Missy was just another face. “He said muhh-mmy wasssn’t comm-inng baack.”

“How old are you, sweetie?” Missy asked carefully.

“Fiiiiive.”

_By all the bells in the Cloister…_ She and Bill had talked in the vault. Well – Bill had talked, Missy played and pretended to ignore her. After the monks, Bill spoke of her mother. Missy didn’t know very much but the one thing she did remember was that Bill’s mother died when she was  _five_ . This must be it. The Cyber technology was lingering on the strongest emotions in her mind – good and bad. It was the most efficient way to erase them. Remove the hooks first.

Missy closed the distance between them and knelt on the straw beside Bill.  The little girl shifted. “Five’s a big number.”

“Fiiiiive and a-hhh halllf.”

“Your birthday is in May – isn’t it?” Missy added softly. Bill nodded. Children loved their birthdays. It was the first thing they shared. A happy memory built year on year. Missy always remembered birthdays. “I’ve got a friend who was born in May but he’s a bit grumpy.” Bill lifted her hands to her head and wiggled them about. “Yes...” Missy nearly smiled. “The one with the hair.”

A  strange noise came out of the machine. Missy suspected it was a giggle but robots weren’t built for laughter. The synthesiser struggled to process it.

“I’ve got a little girl. She’s seven and a half.” Missy’s daughter would _always_ be seven. Locked in time. Distilled to a memory. “ The ‘ _half’_ is the really important bit.”

“Wheeere is sheee?”

T he only thing that Missy could see was the flame quivering at the heart of the lamp. Her vision tunnelled toward it. The rest of the world fell into a hush. “Home.”

“Cooooold.”

Missy snapped out of it. “How about a blanket, hmm?” She fished one out from the straw – stood up – shook it clean and draped it around the metal body.  It made absolutely no difference but Bill clutched at it. “ That’s better. It’s a bit dreary in here.”

“I don’t liiike ittt. Why-am-I heeere?”

When Missy sat back beside Bill she could have  _sworn_ that she saw the little, wide-eyed girl instead of the machine. Sensibly she knew that was Bill’s mind reaching out, projecting her own perception on Missy’s telepathic connection.  In reality what she saw was a frightened little girl, cheeks stained with tears and her kneels tucked up under her chin, drowning in a blanket.  It was instinct that made Missy lean over and wrap her arms around Bill. The little girl settled into her  side .

“Because you’re _safe_ here.” She cooed. “ So very safe.”

* ~*~*

_Confused._ That was the prominent emotion bashing itself against the Doctor’s skull as he emerged from the cellar. His shirt was stained with wine, ash and blood.  One moment they’d been fighting. The Master lunged forward – fisted his hands in the Doctor’s shirt – and dragged him up from the steps. He was tossed across the floor – rolling over the oil lamp with toppled over, smashed and caught alight. The sudden flare of light reverberated as an echo in the Master’s eyes.  Dancing in their depths. Shadow and flame.  That’s all he ever was.

T he Doctor’s sleeve caught in the oil and a rush of fire grasped hold of the fabric. He yelped – rolling onto his arm – smothering it against the wine and stone. A pair of hands hauled him off the ground and threw him into the other direction. He landed on the wide curve of a barrel, nearly snapping his spine before his arms splayed out to steady himself.

The Master strutted around in front – stained with wine and blood from his torn stitches. He looked  _crazed_ . This body of his had never really settled. Any mirage of composure was held together with melodrama and silk – ready to unravel at the lightest touch.

He slid his body back up the barrel until he was sitting. It was difficult to believe that a short time ago he’d been sitting on the roof with the same Time Lord, contemplating eternity. The hard truth was that  _they were the same_ so the Doctor reached for the fragment of Missy that must be lurking under all that hatred in the Master’s eyes.

T he Doctor tried talking to him – tried a few of the softer points that Missy had revealed to him over the years in the hope that the Master might latch onto one of them. He didn’t. He raged.  _He burned._ Then he stormed up to the Doctor with a fist swinging toward him. The Doctor caught the Master’s wrist before he could strike but the force of it pinned the Doctor’s arm back down to the barrel. Another fist came up and the process repeated.  They ended up locked together – unable to pull apart.

T highs. Hips. Stomachs. The Master’s weight bore down on the Doctor as they wrestled. His blood ran across the top of the bandages and started to drip onto the Doctor’s white shirt.  The Doctor cried out sharply when the Master pressed his fingers into the Doctor’s injured hand. It caused the Master to slip – his elbow crashing into the barrel beside the Doctor’s head.  Time energy curled out from the bandages and shed a glow over their faces.

S o close. Absolute silence.

The next moment, i t was the Doctor that arched his back, closing the gap between them in an abandon of reason. A kiss cracked through their raging tempers and, as the Doctor raked his free hand through the Master’s short hair, he felt a sharp pain on his lip where the Master’s teeth sank in.

The Doctor closed the cellar door a moment before a bottle met its death against the surface. A tide of wine spilled beneath, lapping around the Doctor’s shoes. He stared at it. His mind racing.  _Confused._ Yes, he didn’t know what the fuck was going on.

* ~*~*

I t was Nardole that saw the crumpled Time Lord through the  veils of pouring rain. He pulled his beanie on and ducked out from the porch, holding his hands over his head in a futile attempt to shield himself from the downpour. The ground beneath was slippery, already turned to slick. The stretch between the gate and the barn was the worst – near calf-deep from the carts tearing up the surface. He stumbled – fell – pushed through until he reached the grass where he found a fresh puddle and washed his hands.

As he drew closer his suspicion was proved right. Missy was sitting in the water, pressed up against the outside of the barn – pale as a ghost.  She was sobbing uncontrollably. Nardole had seen her cry, of course he had, decades and decade s  in the vault he’d often been the object of her frustration. She threw things at him. Threatened him. Entrapped him. Never this. Missy was inconsolable.

“Hey – _hey!_ ” Nardole shouted at her, when he realised that she was bashing her head back against the door so hard that there was blood mixing with the rain. “Stop that! Missy! _No!_ Missy!” He tried to pull her off the door but she fought him, wrestling out of his hold for another solid _whack_ that left her a little dazed. “ For Heaven’s sake, you’re going to knock yourself into a new face if you keep that up. Missy!” This time he managed to slide his arm behind her head so she couldn’t reach the wood.

Without the pain Missy wailed desperately, clutching her arms across her chest. She was so far beyond crying that a constant stream of hot liquid seeped from her eyes, washed away by the rain. It was just sobs. Deep spasms coming from her chest. Nardole doubted that she was even aware of his presence.

“Fuck’s sake...” Nardole looked around desperately.


	6. Chapter 6

T he rain beat against the farm house, tearing a few shingles free and overflowing the guttering until waterfalls hit the windows – blurring the world outside.  Maybe it was broken. Maybe it was meant to mimic Mondas. Nardole didn’t care either way because he liked the rain.  There was never a lot of choice, really. Travelling with the Doctor came with an entrée of wet weather and main course of apocalypse.

H e had the nicest room. Hazran had seen to that, no doubt due to a severely miscalculated crush she’d developed on him.  He wasn’t looking forward to the, ‘by the way, I’m mostly a Cyberman’ conversation that was approaching faster than he’d like. Well…  _android_ , technically – but at the end of the day was there really much of a difference? In the brief moments he stopped to  really  think about his  _out-of-body_ experience he felt faint.

Best to ignore reality.

“Uh – that’s cheating...” Nardole nudged Hazran’s card back across the table. They’d been playing for a few hours and what she lacked in skill she made up for in misbehaviour. Honestly, the second he took his eyes off her she was switching cards and stacking the deck.

“It’s only cheating if you catch me.”

Nardole frowned. “No. That’s not how cheating works. There – see. You should have been paying attention to the cards instead of my hands.”  He added, cleaning up that round.

H azran  peered over Nardole’s shoulder to the figure curled up on the mat facing the roaring fireplace. The woman was so close to the glow that she was little more than a silhouette in front of the flames.  She hadn’t moved or made a sound.

“What’s wrong with her?” Hazran asked in a whisper.

“A great deal, I imagine,” Nardole replied, dealing out another hand. “No – don’t do that...” Nardole reached out and caught Hazran’s skirt as she stood up and started to walk toward the fire. “Leave her alone.”

“I don’t know where you come from, Nardole but there’s a woman on your floor crying and I’m going to go and see if she’s all right.”

“That’s not an ordinary woman and she’s a very long way from being _all right_.”  Nardole tugged a little harder until Hazran sat back down – not put off entirely but certainly diverted. “It was very difficult to settle her. Please – let her be.”

“Her… Who is she, Nardole?”

“You never believed our story from the start.”

“Of course not.” Hazran eyed Nardole. “You’re _all_ terrible liars. Still, one doesn’t turn away a rope when the ladders are gone.”

H e didn’t bother dealing any more cards. Instead, Nardole filled their tea cups and plopped a cube of sugar into each one.  They fizzed beneath the surface. “Bill you understand because you’ve seen it before. A human re-assembled as a machine. That was the truth. She’s my friend and we came here to look after her.”

“That thing still freaks me out...” Hazran admitted.

Nardole’s sigh was patient. “Bill is a  _person_ , Hazran. You have to try to understand.” That was a conversation for a different time.  He’d work her up to it.  “ The other three that arrived with me are Time Lords. They’re,”  he searched for an explanation, “ humanesque creatures that live for vast stretches of time. If something happens to their bodies they change their face –  grow a whole new body in an instant to cheat death. None of this is shocking you?”

She shrugged,  cupping her tea if only for the warmth . “ You forget, spaceman.  I live on a ship trapped  at the edge of a  black hole with a  robot army beneath my feet,  spiralling through time.  There’s a  gaping mouth of death above  and numbers written in the sky. It is not the craziest thing I’ve heard.”

“That’s a point.” Nardole turned slightly, looking at Missy’s back. She hadn’t moved at all since he’d laid her down there. There was something about the flames that mesmerised her. “They also travel in time. The disagreeable one with the beard and the woman by the fire – they are the _same_ Time Lord.” Although Nardole was speaking slowly he could tell that Hazran believed every word instantly.  Pieces that she’d puzzled over were falling into place. “ _She_ is  over three thousand years old. Hundreds of years older the one calling himself the ‘Master’. Two points of the same person. That’s not meant to happen. It sort of – _shorts them out_.”

“But – if she is older wouldn’t she remember what happens here? We could ask her-”

“No – no...” Nardole settled her back down. “No previews of our future, I’m afraid. The Master can’t keep these memories so Missy doesn’t have them. Maybe a flicker here or there – it’s not a perfect process.”

“Why?”

“The universe is protecting itself from a paradox although...” Nardole added, with his eyebrow lofted. It was even more dramatic against his bald head. “...I’m not sure the universe has taken enough precautions with these two.”

“What about-”

“The other man? The Doctor. He’s her-”

“ _Everything._ ”

“I was going to say, _‘friend’_.”

“It’s a fascinating story, Nardole but none of it explains why she’s in that state. That is _shock_. I’ve seen it many times  and I don’t care _what_ species she is, it’s serious.  She’s not going to get any better either if you ignore her. Trust me, hmm? There’s nowhere left for her to fall.”

*~*~*

T he Master winced as he pealed away the bandage from his arm.  The cut, courtesy of the Doctor  a day earlier , ran from his wrist to his elbow, forking half way up.  _Oh yeah…_ Torn stitches everywhere,  hanging out of the flesh and bugger him if it didn’t hurt like shit.

He groaned, letting his head lull to the side. The flames from the smashed oil lamp were dying – running out of fuel while the stench of spilled wine mixed with smoke. _Just like home._ He reached up, briefly touching his lips. Then he laughed – what else could he do?

... probably see to that arm, actually.

He felt his mind drift a little. Stupid flesh. Lose a bit of blood and the lights started to dim. It was very inconvenient with a lifestyle like his.

_Oh hell…_ The Master fumbled sideways. Running out of time before the sweet darkness settled in, he grabbed hold of his sleeve and tore a strip off. Even that action hurt as the fabric used his arm as leverage. He wrapped the cloth back around his dripping wound – over and over and over. That would have to do.

He developed quite a list – falling slowly across the wall of wine until he hit the floor.

* ~*~*

Honestly, no one was going to notice the red stain he’d left at shoulder height along the wall… The Doctor looked up from the floor and sighed. Actually, everyone would notice that but he couldn’t help sliding along it on his way in. Now he sat, sprawled on the ground with medical supplies fanned out around him. His hand was aglow – time energy lifting out of the fractures in his skin.

H e sat and watched it for a while with a sort of morbid curiosity. That was his future – writhing around beneath his skin – itching to break free.  H e closed his eyes. Concentrated. Found that moment of peace in his mind. With a bit of focus he was able to coax  the glow back into his hand but it was getting harder.  A time would come when he’d have to make a choice – let it go or  allow it burn him.

_What if he’d already held it back too long?_

Missy kept warning him of the repercussions and she was  _right_ . There were plenty of documented instances where Time Lords tried to h o ld onto their bodies with terrible consequences. It wasn’t like there was a line in the sand to avoid. He was navigating  uncharted waters.

R e-dressing his hand was unpleasant. Missy had  _always_ been better at repairing the damage. When left to his own devices, the Doctor was slap-dash at best. Eventually he was in a good enough state to stand in front of the mirror.

Gods of the nine worlds… He looked like he’d stepped straight out of the Time War.  Tentatively he ran his hands through his hair, dislodging some soot. No. That wasn’t going to be enough.

* ~*~*

With the soft shuffle of cards in the background, Hazran approached the Time Lord. She was cautious. All of Nardole’s warnings spun in her mind. At first she’d thought them overzealous but the closer she got, the stronger the sense of foreboding became. There was an _air_ around Missy. A halo that pricked the hairs on the back of Hazran’s neck. Those Cyber-creatures that stalked up around the house at night were _nothing_ compared to the crumple of lace and leather staring into the flames.

_Time_ was palpable. Humans could  _sense_ its passage on objects. A mountain range. Ripples chasing each other of the ocean. The surface of the sun. The gaps splitting reality. A n ancient Time Lord...

H azran knelt beside the woman’s head.  There were  dark tracks of makeup dried on her cheeks and the familiar mark of blood down her neck and over the back of her collar. Normally she’d part the hair gently and search for the injury but a silent warning nested in her mind told her  _not to touch_ .

“You’re _in_ my head...” Hazran realised. “I – I think I can hear you.” Nothing. The woman could have been a statue her breath was so shallow. “That is _you_ , isn’t it? It’s like a whisper. An impression… Wow.” Hazran touched her own head.

N ardole watched closely. There was a loaded shotgun propped up against the table.

T hen there was pain. Hazran flinched, eyes closed, turning away. It rolled through the back of her mind but it wasn’t hers. “Let me help you.” Hazran whispered and then repeated the words in her mind – pushing back against the psychic link.

Missy shifted slightly – curling her fingers against the rug.

Hazran opened her eyes and dared to lay a hand on Missy’s damp shoulder. The woman was tiny beneath all those layers. A fragile creature with nothing left to latch onto. “Tell me what happened. I’m only going to listen.”

Within one breath Missy had dragged herself into a seated position.  Sleeping lions appeared frail but when they woke it was with their ferocity renewed.  Missy’s eyes were pale like ice and so clear that Hazran could see flecks of gold buried deep within the iris.  Her pupils dilated, sizing Hazran up. Nardole looked toward his weapon.

Missy was positively wild. Like a caged animal, freshly released, she shuffled carefully forward and tilted her head from side to side. Hazran held her ground. There was something dreadfully mournful about Missy. Instead of running, Hazran offered her hand. Missy ignored it completely and instead reached for the curious human. She slid one hand around its waist and draped her other hand tenderly around its shoulder, enveloping the mortal  in a dangerous embrace  until she could hear their single heart beating firmly against her chest. Oh, they were afraid. She loved fear. It was so pure. Unadulterated. Like love.  There was honesty in it.

H azran tensed in the Time Lord’s arms. The gentleness was deceptive. Missy smelled like dust after the rain.

“Missy...” Hazran whispered but she was hushed by Missy’s nails digging into her shirt. A set of lips disturbed the fine network of hair above her ear as the Time Lord’s words rippled through the air. Missy’s story wasn’t just murmured in the inch between them – the Time Lord was sharing flickers of it in Hazran’s mind. _Red grass. A twisted gate with copper tips. Smoke billowing – black and heavy. It sank from the windows and spoolled across the ground like a wave. A child screamed in the dark._ Tears  stuck in Hazran’s eyes. She tried to pull away but Missy gripped tighter, pouring the full horror into her ear. _Screams. They wouldn’t stop. A gasp of golden light tore through the flame. The ground shook. The screams started afresh._ “No – no...” Hazran trie d to speak.

Missy let her go.

Hazran scramble d back across the floor – shaking wildly.  Missy was calm. Her façade was back – cold, like a sheet of ice. Now Hazran knew what sat beneath it  _and she was terrified._

“Are you all right?” Nardole stood up, stepping toward Hazran as she crossed the floor, heading toward the door. He placed his hand over the doorknob to bring her to a pause. “Hey… What happened?”

Hazran was a ruin. “You leave her alone...” Hazran murmured, her voice shaking.

“Wait-” He tried to follow her out the door but she ducked around the corner. “Great.”

Nardole turned around and looked toward the rug but was met with only the lonely crackle of the fire. His breath caught. Missy was gone. “Missy?” He asked the room, spinning around. “Missy… Missy where-” But he found her perched in one of the high backed chairs. Oh, she was wide awake now. Alert – playing with an iron poker she’d dragged from the coals. The last foot of its length glowed red. She’s never looked more like a demon playing with fire. “ What did you say to Hazran?”

“None – of your business...” Missy drawled, making eyes at the glowing metal.

“Let me take that,” Nardole nodded at the dangerous poker she’d taken a fancy too, “so that I can have a look at your head. You gave it quite a knock around.” He trailed off as Missy pointed the burning ember at him, almost daring him to take it from her.

“Why are you afraid of me?” Missy asked curiously.

He really hoped that she hadn’t chosen this moment to start soul searching. That would end badly for all of them. “ You disassembled me a few times for parts,” he reminded her. “Right now – you look as though you’re on the hunt for  _parts_ .”

M issy smirked in reply.

A knock at the door.

Hoping it was Hazran, Nardole steadied Missy with a look. “You just – stay here. Try not to poke anyone’s eye out with that.” He sighed. Missy wasn’t exactly brandishing a look that filled him with confidence. He moved back to the door and glared at the wash of grey hair and brooding eyes. “ Well, well, well...”

T he Doctor tried to look around Nardole but he closed the door a little and stepped in to fill the gap. “Is she in there?”

“Is _who_ in here?”

“Don’t be like that, Nardole. I’m not in the mood.”

“No. Clearly. You’ve been in another scrap and seeing as I can account for one Time Lord is must have been with junior.” The Doctor didn’t say anything in reply, so Nardole knew he was right. “The two of you have got to stop tearing shreds off each other or there’s going to be nothing left for the Cybermen when they arrive. If you think I’m defending this farm without you...” Now he had the Doctor was shifting awkwardly, trying to hide the mess of wine and blood on his shirt. His sleeve was burned away and folded up but the charcoal lingered on his scent. _“You’re gonna kill her.”_

“Is she-”

“Doctor I’m-”

“No-” he grabbed the door with one hand, threatening to push it open, while leveraging himself against the door frame, “just – is she in there?”

“Yes.” Nardole looked at him more closely. He was different. “You’ve made a mistake, haven’t you?”

“Missy!” He attempted to force his way in but Nardole kept him out.

“Go away, Doctor.”

“You can’t be s-”

“Now.” Nardole pushed him backwards into the hallway and closed the door leaving the Time Lord quite startled.

“Ah...” An unwelcome set of footsteps traipsed up the hallway. “Rejection.” The Master crossed his hands over his chest. He looked in about the same state as the Doctor. “It hurts – doesn’t it.”

“Stay out of this...” The Doctor muttered, considering the merits of breaking down the door. That might send the wrong message and Nardole was a nightmare when he was annoyed.

“Relax. I’m not here to talk to you,” the Master replied. “I’ve come for your tin-box.”

“He’s not in the mood for talking.” He muttered back, prodding at the door. “As you saw.”

“Forgive me if I have a go myself. Your manners were always – alarming.” The Master looked the Doctor up and down. He was still trying to process what happened in the cellar and, seeing as neither of them showed any interest in raising the point, he went ahead and knocked on Nardole’s door. When it opened, the Master offered his least threatening smile.

Nardole was so far from happy. “Do I have some intergalactic sign on my chest that reads,  _‘Time Lord Babysitter?’_ Hmm?” He was properly cross. Nearly a hundred years of this shit he’d endured. First with River and the Doctor, then the vault – now a mini-Master. He’ d not signed up for any of this. Frankly, he’d rather just put his head in a box and leave it somewhere quiet for a few millennia. “I should tell the pair of you to bugger off – in different directions!” He added sharply. “ Lick your own wounds for a change.”

“I’ve come looking for my screwd-” The Master stumbled backwards quickly as the door slammed in his face. He stared at it for a moment, rather shocked. “Rude...” There was a very soft chuckle to his right. “Yeah all right – he didn’t exactly take a shining to you either so you’ve got no cause to gloat.”

T he Doctor considered an amusing quip he’d been holding back when Nardole’s door opened again. If anything, he was more cross than before. “You might as well come in – both of you,” he snapped. “She’s gone.”


	7. Chapter 7

“You’ve been shaking your head for a couple of hours. Is that a defect? Few screws loose or is the Doctor as rubbish with androids as he is with the TARDIS?” The Master lounged on the rug in front of the fire – sprawled out with all of his limbs basking in the glow.

Nardole lingered on the sight for a moment. It was extremely strange witnessing him down there  so soon  after Missy. It was as though the two of them existed as shadows of each other.  They laid against the same walls. Preferenced identical chairs. Even when they were out walking they picked  matching paths around the scarecrows. “ The pair of you are giving me a twitch.”

The Doctor was wincing beneath Nardole as he put a couple of careful stitches in his head. He’d asked for fresh clothes to be sent up and they were sitting in a pile on the table. The Master was already wearing his and alternated between complaining about the tweed and moaning  in the general direction of the weather.

“I’m serious. Unless you get your arm taken off by a Cyberman, this is the last time I’m playing nurse. That goes _double_ for you, over there on the rug.”

The Master puffed a smoke ring into the air. He’d found a cigar of sorts in a box on the coffee table and was now casually smoking his way through it while laid out.  He held up his hand and made the ‘peace’ sign – which greatly surprised Nardole right up until he turned it around into a ‘V’.  Well, at least that made more sense.

“Go on – get dressed,” Nardole shooed the Doctor off after he’d finished. “I’ll not have you walking around in that state. Frightens the children and _you_ -” Nardole pointed his needle at the Master, “-shower. For god’s sake. You smell like you’ve been through a bonfire on a pirate ship.”

T he Doctor shrugged out of his shirt and left it in a sad pile on the floor. His singlet joined it. He couldn’t see the Master watching from the corner of his eye. The rain was heavier and the fire drowned the whole room in its amber glow – including the Doctor’s lean back. He was mostly bone with fine muscles tapered between them. Nothing like the last body, the Master imagined. That one was young and tall with broad shoulders. Still a rake, though.

Nardole picked up clothes from both Time Lords and left the room. The Doctor shook out the shirt and slid  one of his arms into it.

“We’re not fucking – are we?” asked the Master, blowing another cloud of smoke into the room. “I thought we were, initially. Girl-Me looks at you with those huge come-hither eyes like she’s undressing you every time you strut by but, when it comes right down to it, I don’t think you have the balls to touch her.”

He dragged his shirt up onto his shoulders and started on the buttons. “No.” The Doctor replied. “We’re not.”

“Seriously...” The Master sat up with his back to the fire. “Seventy years locked in a vault and we never… God, I’d fuck anything once if there was nothing else on offer. So would you – if your companions are anything to measure against.”

H e was only three buttons in and not even in the right order when he gave up and turned around to face the Master. How do you even begin to explain what happened between him and Missy in those years when he didn’t even fully understand it himself? “You are not my ‘companion’ you are my ‘friend’.”

“I don’t think that word means what you think it means.”

“Do you remember what it was like to be my friend?” The Doctor asked, quite seriously this time. “No really – I want to know. How much of Gallifrey do you remember?” There was no answer but the Master had forgotten all about his cigar. It smouldered between his fingers leaving a trail of pale smoke on the air – like a ribbon. “I thought so. _All of it._ You asked me what it was like between Missy and myself well _that’s_ what it’s been like. We’ve been drifting back to the start and we might have made it if it wasn’t _for you_.”

C ruelly, the Doctor left him with that thought.

Alone in the room, the Master  allowed his memories to wander back through the years. It was strange. The longer Time Lords lived the more they forgot – particularly from one regeneration to the next. It was worse for him. He’d clawed his way  out from death in ways that destroyed parts of his mind. Yet Gallifrey – it had sunk beneath the waves, protected from decay. In the still of his dreams he visited its hallways, perused the sprawling libraries and climbed the mountain pass above his home.

* ~*~*

“Missy...”

The Doctor found her sitting on his bed, facing the door with a black, iron poker resting across her lap. She’d re-done her makeup, curled her hair and found a new set of clothes from somewhere. It wasn’t Gothic Mary Poppins – more Victorian Provincial but it was enough of a hint to let him know that she was back in control.

“I’ve been looking for you,” he continued, stepping into the room.

M issy noted how  _soft_ he was with her. He was cooing at her, as though she were some kind of pet he’d tried to tame. There was a good lashing of guilt there too – written across that stupid face of his.  Irony was, he didn’t know the  _half_ of what she was going through and yet he had the gall to presume that his old worlds were what haunted her waking hours. “ Have you now...”

He nodded. “Nardole said that you were gone so I thought perhaps you’d  returned to the barn. I heard that you’ve been down there a few times.”

“More than you.”

The Doctor swallowed. Well, it certainly wasn’t a lie. “There was something I wanted to say to you.”

Missy felt her insides turn. She pushed off the bed, standing to her full height – which was well short of normal considering she’d left her boots drying in Nardole’s room. “Your buttons are all wrong.” Missy nodded at his chest. He’d screwed up right at the start leaving the entire thing askew. He looked down at it dumbly. Absolutely hopeless.  When he took another step, Missy ducked slightly to the side. Another of her warnings.

“An apology – I guess, is what you’d-” His knees buckled immediately, sending him crashing to the floor. He cradled his stomach where she’d hit him _very hard_ with the poker. It had knocked the wind right out of him.

“ _That,_ dear Doctor, is your apology.” Missy took another step so that her shadow fell over him.

B loody hell. He was lucky she hadn’t cracked a rib. The Doctor wasn’t a complete moron. He could tell that in this moment, Missy wasn’t playing around. She meant it.

“The weird thing is that I didn’t remember until _after_ it happened...” Missy continued. “Which makes me think that not all of this is pre-ordained. Yes – is the answer to that question you can’t quite manage.” She added, watching the Doctor struggle on the ground. Interesting, she’d wanted to see him on his knees for a long time but this wasn’t exactly what she had in mind. “He and I are the _same person_. What made you imagine that it was all right to say what you did? Or did you think I’d never know? I don’t know what’s worse...” Missy spun the poker over the back of her hand. “You believing you’d get away with it or you deliberately breaking our trust.  On Gallifrey our lecturer used to say that one’s true character rises to the surface when no one is looking. If I were you I’d go and think about that, _Doctor_.’”

H e used the edge of the dresser to help him return to his feet.  _Oh shit._ He’d gone too far. The Master might have beaten the living heck out of him for his swipe at her child but Missy was manifesting the true fallout for their friendship. His words had cut so deep that she’d let them fester for hundreds of years. He had to understand that his mistakes here – in the present – were building her past,  brick by brick . “I went too far, Missy.” The Doctor edged away from her when she ventured a step in his direction – his eyes on the poker.

“Don’t worry – I’m not going to hit you again. I won’t lay so much as another claw on you. That was your final warning, Doctor. If it happens again I’ll simply ignore you. You can shout and rage all you like but your words will bounce off me and echo in the void. This friendship is _not_ unbreakable. You think I’m evil now?”

The Doctor shook his head. He’d  _never_ believed that. They both had the capacity for darkness. If anyone was keeping score, there were more shadows in his past than hers.

“Just you wait until we go it alone, Doctor.”

“I do not believe you,” he whispered, as she started to turn. She was leaning against the poker as if it were her umbrella. “You _are_ going to the barn, aren’t you?” Missy didn’t reply so the Doctor knew that he was right. “ Are you trying to save her?”

Missy started to walk toward the door – barefoot. Before she opened it, she stopped. “The  _only_ thin g I want to do to Bill is  _kill her_ .” Missy replied.

The Doctor recognised the waver in her voice. He moved closer, ignoring the pain across his stomach and the bruise forming. He’d really earned that whack. The pain was cathartic  for both of them . “Because it’s  _kind_ .” He whispered.

A gasp caught under Missy’s breath. Her shoulders hitched.

“Missy – turn around...”

She leaned closer to the door, hiding against it.

“Look at me...” He begged softly.

“I don’t want to.” If she did that – looked upon that stupid line-y face of his, into those grey eyes… She’d forgive him.

“Are you crying?”

“I’ve no more tears left. They ran dry.” Missy felt that right to her soul. Her walls were up – a veritable fortress from which she had no intention of emerging. “You know what I learned today?” She continued, still facing the door. “I realised that the _only_ way I’m getting out of this alive is if _I_ make it happen.” And she didn’t mean _this version_ of herself. This was about saving her past – as frustrating as it was to deal with.

T he Doctor placed his hands either side of her on the door. She could sense his presence behind her – cradling her without touching.  There was so much warmth radiating out of him.

“You are not alone, Missy.”

She pressed her forehead to the door. Tentatively she slid her free hand up the wall until it was beside his. Her pinkie stretched out – barely touching his thumb. A life line. A flicker of hope… For the first time in years she heard the Doctor’s hearts thunder against her back.

“In the end, we’re all alone.” Missy replied – withdrawing her touch. “This is the end.”

Missy shuffled through the gap beneath his arm and left before he had a chance to reply. This was all such a mess and moment to moment, he wasn’t sure which he was more afraid of – her past or present.

*~*~*

“You again...” Missy side-eyed herself, as the Master emerged from a door down the hallway. Apparently they’d only been allocated one room in this farm and he was occupying it.

“Still looking for my-” The Master shut up and raised his hands in surrender when she lifted her poker and thrust it in his direction. It lingered above his chest. “All right. Calm down. Another time.”

Missy’s eyes widened. “Have you been smoking?” She scorned shrilly.

“My lungs...”

“Bloody idiot.” She muttered. “Here… Have a pointy stick.” Missy turned the poker horizontal and shoved it into his chest as a weirdly violent gift. His arms folded upwards, holding it awkwardly as she continued down the corridor.

“...what am I supposed to do with a sharp stick?” He wondered aloud.

* ~*~*

“Huuuu-man interrrrface unnnn-ahhh-vailable.”

M issy sighed and sank back into the straw. She’d been trying to wake Bill up for ages but the Cyber-programming was busy. The chest plate was alive with lights – every now and then the metal body twitched. It was unsettling. Without Bill’s consciousness, all Missy could see was the Cyber body in all its horrific glory.

With a murmur of defeat, Missy left the toy she’d brought down from the children’s room beside the lamp in case Bill woke up.  There was nothing else she could do. If she fussed about too much with the circuitry she might kill Bill’s mind off entirely.

The one thing that was puzzling her was the rain. It was getting heavier. Missy had been on a lot of spaceships like this and they were all carefully controlled.  Of course, there were smudges of  entropy built in so the humans didn’t go mad but this felt like it was broken. Broken wasn’t good. One way or another, everyone was going to have to leave this level shortly.

Missy cringed at the reality. Level after level of farms and then engineering decks, communication arrays, habitations… They were all running out of synch with each other. She wondered how many levels had simply died because the heaters couldn’t work or the air filters were operating in another time zone… The possibilities for failure were enormous. The ship itself would never fly again so the only natural progression of events was the Doctor evacuating them all through his TARDIS. Fine, say they really could do all that without the Cybermen killing them or her past fucking up their plans for light entertainment. Pretend they reach the TARDIS and break free of the black hole. Then what? Where do you dump a civilisation? Presumably not Mondas because those ships left for a reason.  That sulky little planet was running out of power. It was probably a cold lump of rock drifting in a void by now.  The Doctor had such a vocal sense of morality – she wondered what his solution was to this conundrum.

He already had one… None of them were getting out alive so – no solution required.

“Well – I know you’re a bit sleepy but did you want another story?” Missy asked the unresponsive Bill. “Right then. What was your next question – oh yes… Where do you buy a TARDIS? Well – firstly, they don’t come in shops. They’re _grown_. Quite a sight too. Sends some people mad.” Missy laughed quite manically. “Not the Doctor and I, of course. That was our first picnic. Bits of stars strewn out in space with their hearts captured. You’ve never seen a star until you’ve seen a stellar massacre.”

* ~*~*

“Don’t bother – she’s not awake.” Missy said, closing the barn door. The Doctor was waiting for her, keeping dry under the awning. He was holding her umbrella. “Did you come all this way just to walk me back to the house?”

“We didn’t leave things very well.” He replied, opening the umbrella. The Doctor held it up over both of them as they stepped back into the rain. On a whim, he offered his arm and was genuinely surprised when she accepted it.

“We’ve done worse.” She pointed out – to which the Doctor laughed. He looked up to the faint pattern of stars on the underside of her umbrella and Missy felt herself soften at his irrepressible joy. He’d smile at the face of oblivion and laugh at the gods of death. It was foolish. And she _loved_ it. “I want to be angry with you.” Missy added. They were closer to the forest than the house. The ground was unsteady underfoot and there was nowhere for either them to run.  She found herself holding his arm more firmly. “That’s how _he_ feels. So much anger. Do not try and reach him – he’s not ready. You’ll crash and burn together.”

The Doctor stopped and turned carefully to face her. Neither of them could move very far while staying inside the protection of the umbrella. The umbrella pressed between them and Missy’s hands ended up on his chest. They were cold and sought out his warmth. He looked down to them. Two porcelain paws – one of them covered in grazes.

“You want me to leave him alone?”

“I am asking you to trust me. I’ll look after my past.” Her eyes waited for the Doctor to lift his.

“What?” He asked gently, after they stared at each other for many minutes.

Missy slid both of her hands inside his open jacket, turned her head and laid it against his shoulder in an intimate embrace. She didn’t want to speak – she wanted him to hold her.

The Doctor only had one free hand which he wrapped low around her back and pulled her tight against his chest, ignoring the growl from his fresh bruises.  The rain fell around him – pattering softy on the grass and tapping on the leaves. He committed it to memory. Every breath of it.  The pools at their feet and the beads of water caught in Missy’s hair like stars.  He shifted, pressing a lingering kiss into her hair. She wriggled closer in response, humming softly against his chest.

“M7-90βC...”

“Mmm?” Missy queried, without moving.

“Common name, ‘The Purple Death’. That was the name of the first star I was going to take you to.” Her head lifted slightly – enough to look at him. “If we were in the TARDIS I’d show you the next co-ordinates. They’re already programmed.” Missy’s eyes were softening as he spoke. “I wasn’t testing you. I’d never dare.”

“Then why this charade?”

“For the sake of the children.”

“So this whole trip was – performance art?” Missy arched her eyebrow.

“Were you not giving a performance?”

Well  _yes_ it was hard to fault him on that point. “So… We’re both going to die in the name of theatre? How poetic.” She laid her head back down against his chest and slid her hands right around his back beneath his jacket. “ Show me.”

“What?” He settled back down against her.

“The star.”

“I’m one TARDIS short of actually having one.”

“Oh – don’t be so lazy,” she purred. “Or have you forgotten how to be a Time Lord?”

“You never let me anywhere near your mind, Missy.”

“My mind has been unlocked since you saved me from the scaffold if only you had the courage to look.”

Missy felt him after a moment – edging tentatively toward her mind. It was a rustle in the dark so she lit a lantern – a vision of Gallifrey’s mountains dipped in snow, so perfect they might have been standing beneath them.  _He was there_ . Looking around in surprise – inspecting her reverie. He’d forgotten the detail of their home. He was as careless with his memory as he was with his TARDIS.

“Now you...” Missy breathed.

The orange sky bled, dripping away in frightening trails like wax congealing at the base of a candle. Gallifrey was replaced with a curtain of black, pricked by innumerable points of life. The detail faded into focus as the Doctor concentrated. Some of the lights transformed into ovals blushing with colour. Entire galaxies spirall ed in the distance. Others  became stars.

“Liar...” Missy whispered, when she saw the streak of a falling star. “We’re in space.” She could have sworn she felt him smile against her.

I n the vision, the Doctor took her hand and turned her around. She gasped softly. The entire sky was taken by the corpse of  a  violet nebula. At the centre was a tiny, spinning ball of neutrons white hot but shifted into purple by the cloud of dust in front of it. It was like an eye – peering out at them.  Its chaotic death spin had created  concentric ripples through the nebula like a stone tossed into a pond.  It was  _beautiful_ and it was  _violent_ . It was a perfect distilling of the universe.

“I thought you’d like it...” said the Doctor. “You always did enjoy a bit of murder in the afternoon.”

Missy was smiling brightly. She hadn’t noticed that in the Doctor’s vision she was wearing the hat he’d given her  and h e was in his velvet jacket with the mismatched buttons. “ Rubbish...” she protested. “I’m a lifelong pacifist.”

T he Doctor looked over his shoulder – a frown working its way across his eyebrows. “Can you hear that?”

Missy was busy eyeing the star. “It’s your memory...”

No. This wasn’t his memory. He could have sworn he felt the heat of a flame graze his skin and further still – the sound of a screaming child. “Missy – Missy this isn’t me...”  He turned back to her, alarmed. “Missy – I can hear-”

She heard it too.

Missy stumbled away from the Doctor and straight into the rain. Their shared vision shattered at once – replaced by the false countryside.  The Doctor reached after her immediately, taking her by the arm and dragging her back under the umbrella.

“What was that?” he asked, urgently.

“That was my fault. I allowed my mind to wander.” She was breathing heavily, trying to calm her hearts.

“Missy – that wasn’t what I asked.”

He was looking at her with fearful eyes. She placed her hands back onto his chest, showing that she did not intend to run. “You _know_ what that was.”

The Doctor nodded.


	8. Chapter 8

_They held hands._ The Doctor’s hearts flickered out of step with each other the moment Missy had reached for him, taken his hand and entwined their fingers together.  _They used to do this._ In a world of prying eyes and strict social order, holding hands was one of their rebellious actions when they were young. It was a cornerstone of their friendship. A symbol, more than anything, of trust.

He tried not to let himself over think the moment. Maybe she only did it to stop him falling into the mud as they came around the side of the gate  with his spidery legs going everywhere . What if it no longer held the same weight in her hearts as it did in his?  That was unlikely to be right...

His fears were quieted when they reached the farmhouse. Missy, stilling holding his hand, squeezed it gently and looked him right in the eyes. She was making sure that he understood before she released her grip and turned her attention to the umbrella.

“May I?” she asked, reaching for it.

He relinquished the umbrella and stood back as she shook the rain off before folding i t neatly. “Do you want to know a curious thing?” Missy asked, as she pinned the little strap around the umbrella to keep it in place. “I’ve used this more often against the rain than anything else. The same cannot be said for your screwdriver.” An even softer smile accompanied her bright eyes. “When was the last time you assembled a cabinet?”

“It’s not that sort of screwdriver...” He mumbled defensibly.

“It’s not _any_ sort of a screwdriver,” she corrected, before flashing him one of her playful winks. This time it didn’t come drowned in confusing hostility like the last one. “Are you going to come inside or is it your plan to remain defiantly in the rain?”

“It’s not supposed to be raining like this.”

*~*~*

They took tea in the old dining room at the back of the farmhouse. For a while, the Doctor mused about the early years of the settlement. This crew were not the ship’s intended colonists and so, from a tiny, largely unskilled force they’d managed to crawl into civilisation. He marvelled in it – circling the room with his cup and saucer, inspecting every inch of the collapsing house. Missy let him. Perched at her table she’d found a diary of memoirs written by one of the original maintenance crew. So, while the Doctor _imagined_ the past, Missy read about it and unlike the Doctor, Missy’s interest was not purely intellectual.

“Am I really your boyfriend?” He chirped, from the far side of the room.

Missy nearly choked on her tea. No. forget that – she  _did_ choke on her tea. She set the cup down hurriedly while her hand pressed against her chest and she tried to cough up her lungs.  _Death by tea_ . Well, that would be a new one. She wasn’t exactly opposed to  the idea but the timing was a bit rubbish.

Eventually she recovered enough to return her gaze to the Doctor. He’d set his cup and saucer on  the mantle and had tilted his head in concern at her coughing fit.

“Why do you ask that?”

“I’m not sure I grasp the human social context of that status.”

“Dear me, you’re serious...” Missy closed the cover of the diary and swivelled in her chair to face him. Well now she was just curious. “What do _you_ think it means?”

He shrugged shyly. “It’s so vague.” He complained. “ Rose Tyler had a boyfriend but they rarely saw each other and in the end he decided to stay on Earth with another human. Donna had one who she intended to marry but he was drugging her on the order of a giant space spider. Her next boyfriend was created by a library computer programme  that may or may not have been a dream . Then there was Amy – her boyfriend was a plastic Roman and Clara’s – well, you met Danny Pink.”

Even Missy had to admit that the Doctor hadn’t been given a very consistent set of data to draw conclusions from. “ Really, the only important distinction is  _what do I think boyfriend means_ ...”

He leaned back against the wall with something akin to nerves.  Social constructs had never been his thing,  e ven inside the framework of Gallifreyan society. ‘Friend’ was a title he’d picked out from the mix without really understanding it. Friendship to him could only be paralleled by a  _range_ of Earth labels.

“I like your definition of ‘friend’,” Missy began, touching the handle of her cup. Maybe that was her own version of nerves flickering through. “So we’ll start with that and obviously you’re a boy this time around so there’s your noun all mapped out.”

He was still leaning against the wall. “Was there anything else?”

Missy decided to stand up.  She crossed the room slowly. She had a feeling that the Doctor knew  _exactly_ what they were to each other but the re-emergence of her former self  had left him a little confused.

“You’re _tiny_...” The Doctor noted, when they were face to face.

“All this time and you finally notice that _height_ wasn’t one of the optional extras in my last regeneration.”

“Usually you wear those pointy things.”

“High heels.” Missy corrected. He was already avoiding the real subject. “Now, you asked me a question. Here’s your answer. Are you ready?”

The Doctor nodded.

Missy placed her left hand high on his chest, directly on the buttons beneath his neck. She undid the first one, sliding it out of the buttonhole with her thumb and then pried the two sides of the fabric apart so that she could brush over his delicate skin. He quaked beneath her touch.

“What?” His lips barely parted.

She was the one hesitating now. “You’ll run away.” He usually did, whenever things turned serious between them. Honestly he was such an idiot. She  _knew_ that he pined for their friendship and whenever that rare, precious moment came around when they were both in a position to accept it, he always ran.

“I’ve nowhere to run, Missy.”

“That’s a point.” Her lips curled into a smile. _She was looking at his._ Curious, the Doctor always assumed that she was in control of this part of their friendship but when it came to the Doctor, Missy knew full well that _control_ was the one thing she lacked. Her younger selves included. Her right handed lifted – barely cupping the side of his face while her thumb brushed along his bottom lip until  they parted. Her gaze was indulgent. This face… It _moved_ her.

From nowhere, his hand spread over the base of her spine. Hesitant, he barely dared to draw her closer. Missy helped, rising onto her tip toes to close the variation in their height. The action caused his hand to slip lower than he’d dared before, finding the curve of her arse beneath the layers of pleated fabric.  In response, Missy dragged her bottom lip between her teeth. It flushed red when she released it and had become the soul focus of the Doctor’s attention.  Kissing was not new to them but this felt like it was a door opening to something else…

“Missy...” He whispered, still focused on her lips. She hadn’t moved. “If you don’t kiss me I-”

But she  _did_ .

*~*~*

_It was all consuming_ , the Master realised, lingering in the shadows beyond the door. He’d been on his way into the room to confront them both regarding the _slight_ issue  of a non-existent armoury with an army of Cybermen due in less than a week when he’d spotted them.

The Doctor was laid back against the wall, his head dipped down with Missy in his arms. She had one hand on his chest, caught between their bodies which were pressing together so tightly the Master couldn’t tell where one began and the other finished. Her other hand was raking carelessly through the Doctor’s mop of silver hair – gripping it when their kisses deepened as if she needed something to hold onto.  His hands were sliding up and down her back both pulling her closer and unable to settled.

M ouths open, their lips tried to tear the breath from the other. The Master felt something clench, deep in his stomach as he noticed their tongue s slipping between each other lips, drinking each other as if they might die if they stopped.

They had been lying to him – both of them. This wasn’t a crush or curiosity. They were  _infatuated_ .

_He was going to do this,_ the Master realised. One day it would be _his_ lips against the Doctor’s and _his_ moan that spilled onto the air.

T he Master tore himself away from the sight, rolling further into the darkness. He wasn’t  _ready_ to want that. He had so much anger to burn through first. So why, he wondered, did his breath catch in the back of his throat and  _why_ had he lifted his hand to his face – trailing over his lips with a memory from the dark?

*~*~*

Nardole had no such graces. A few minutes later, with the Master long gone, he ambled into the room carrying a few slender books. The Doctor noted his presence through the haze of Missy’s kiss and broke away from her. She sank back down onto her feet and peeled off to the side, untangling herself from the Doctor with one hell of a blush in her pale skin.

“Oh right, well _yes_ – that was predictable.”  Nardole mumbled, barely acknowledging them. “Might want to-” he added, pointing at the Doctor’s chest.

The Doctor followed Nardole’s gaze and startled, finding three of his buttons had been worked undone by Missy.  She was already fixing her hair, tucking the strands that had freed themselves back into their pins.  There wasn’t a thing they could do about their swollen lips. Time Lords indeed.

“N-Nardole,” the Doctor eventually nodded in greeting.

Missy returned to her seat and poured some more tea. Nardole wandered over to her and held out the slim books  trying  _very hard_ not to give her any, ‘I told you so’ looks.

“You found them?” Missy asked, accepting his gift while ignoring his smug demeanour.

“Well, it’s hardly Chopin,” Nardole continued, watching as Missy carefully opened the dust-laden books. They were full of handwritten sheet music, scrawled by different composers. “But it _is_ music.” It was one of the Time Lord’s more innocuous requests and one  which Nardole had been happy to grant. A bit of music might do everyone some good – especially the children who had nothing but the march of war to play to.

T he Doctor approached, eyeing the books and then nodded lightly at Nardole in thanks. It ha d been a difficult few days for all of them – the Doctor certainly had the scars to prove that. “Is there something to play it on?”

Missy shook her head with genuine amusement. “An hour in this room and you didn’t notice the piano...”

It was over his shoulder, pressed against the bank of windows in the light. There was an old rug  thrown on it and a few boxes of shotgun shells used to hold  the whole thing in place. Its legs peeked out from beneath – waiting.  The Doctor’s face lit up in a smil e .

“There’s no one left alive who knows how to play,” Nardole continued. “I’m guessing, being a Time Lord, the TARDIS translation matrix extends beyond language...”

“Music _is_ a language...” The Doctor explained.

Missy flicked to a page and smiled.

Nardole finally realised what it was about Missy that made her so dangerous to the Doctor. She allowed herself to  _feel_ . In a moment such as this, her joy was  _real_ . There was no attempt to mask it in irony, smother it with humour or dismiss it as  jest. Her emotions laid down and draped themselves over the world for all to see and  _that_ was disarming. If she smiled at you – she meant it. If she was going to kill you – she told you.

“Give me a hand, eh – Nardole?” The Doctor said, stepping over to the piano. The pair of them lifted all the rusted boxes off the rug.

“There’s some good stuff in here,” Nardole added, filtering through the shells and casings. “I might take this outside for Hazran when we’re done. We’ll need everything we can find. Right now I wouldn’t go to war against a flock of seagulls.”

“I thought you said you had somewhat of a plan?” The Doctor replied, folding the rug out of the way. It was full of dust and cobwebs. Who knew how many generations it had been laying there for.

“Plan – yes, well maybe later tonight when you’re done here we can sit down. I’ve fashioned an interface with the ship to charge up a laptop I found buried beneath the cellar. There’s plenty of tech down here if you know where to look. Most of it seems to have been forgotten about. Careful – your end is caught on the chair.” He added, as they finished folding the rug.

Beneath was a rather beautiful instrument very similar to a piano. That was the bizarre thing about the Mondas culture. It wasn’t just similar to Earth, parts of it were identical. The last time the Doctor encountered Mondas it has been at a distance – all upside down continents that mimicked Earth but he never really got the chance to stroll around the planet. When and why this spacecraft fled was a mystery. Did it predate the conversion of the planet into Cybermen or was it a result of it? There was no way of knowing.

“Missy – come take a look.”

H er attention lifted to the Doctor. She picked up all the books Nardole had brought and sauntered over to the piano. They were still dusting it down but beneath all the layers of neglect there was a very sweet little instrument.

“Humans are quaint, don’t you think?” She added. “Survival isn’t only about food and water – they need culture and entertainment or they sort of shrivel up. Without it they become...” Her thoughts drifted to the creatures multiplying on the floor below.

“Sit down.” The Doctor pulled out the stool for her.

Missy hitched her skirt, stepped over  the low seat then shuffled into  a comfy spot . She placed the pile of books on top of the piano and settled her chosen piece on the wooden  l edge. It was an upright piano made from cherry-coloured wood. The lid covering the keys was adorned with an inlay. Light and dark woods tessellated together in a winter scene with glaciers and penguins. Missy paused – tracing the gap between the wooden pieces before lifting the cover.

The keys were a surprise. Instead of black denoting sharps and flats, the colour scheme was reversed. Red wood took the place of white keys and honey-coloured caps sat where the black should be. Others were entirely new and these were made out of bone  each with a different winter creature carved into the surface.

“It’s closer to art than music...”

The Doctor thought so too. “It’s a shame that it will meet its end here.”

“Well...” Nardole picked up a couple of the ammunition boxes. “As much as I’d like to stand around ogling a bit of wood, I think I might go prepare for the small war that’s on its way.”

After he left, the Doctor sat himself down beside Missy on the stool. It was just big enough for both of them if they sat close. “Aren’t you going to play?” He asked.

“It’s almost too beautiful,” Missy admitted. “I was reading about it. In the journals…” She added, when he met her with a confused look. “Those books contain accounts from some of the original crew who flew into the gravity well of the black hole. When they came down to the lower decks they realised what was going on. One of them was particularly clever. He understood that the ship would break apart eventually, no matter what he did and that the entire crew were destined to die. He faced a difficult choice. Return to the deck and try to steer the ship or make a life in some of the other levels with the crew.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Now who’s being slow, Doctor?” Missy nudged him gently with her shoulder. “It’ll take another few hundred years on this level for the ship’s hull to lose integrity. About half a _million_ for the lower deck or a couple of weeks on the bridge.”

“Ah...”

“By your sad eyes I take it you understand.” Missy laid her hands on top of the keys but had not yet dared to press down.

“The crew could live for a week and then die – falling into the black hole or exist for generations upon generations in the lower decks of the ship except they would be trapped, never to leave the ship again.”

“Life is life. They chose to stay here knowing full well that this entire vessel is a mausoleum. Your blue friend is still up there. He may very well live to see the end.” Her fingers found the first notes. It was not quite in tune but it had a sort of haunting mourn that suited the sound of the rain.

“ _Mondas_...” The Doctor read the title of the piece. “It’s sad.” He added, after she turned the page. The Doctor moved his left hand, placing it around her back until it settled against her hip. She leaned into his side a little, her hair brushing his shoulder. “ You play very well, Missy.”

“I’ve had a lot of practice-” her last word fell away when she felt his lips press a fleeting kiss to her neck. “You’ll distract me.”

He didn’t appear to care, doing it again  until s he was in great danger of losing herself to his cafuné. 

Missy cleared her throat. It was all she could do not to moan his name as his other hand found her stomach and laid there. “He was a musician, the first man who owned the journal.” She continued her story, trying to focus on the faded page. The ink, once black, had  distressed to ochre  while the pages themselves had begun to crumble. “ He wrote down all the pieces that he could remember. His child – she was a composer. The next book is original work, written on the ship by someone who never got to see the stars  but dreamed of them . Her daughter,  in turn, was a carpenter and though they never played so much as a bar, they dutifully noted how to care for the instrument so that the next musician would have something to play.”

“...and then what happened?” The Doctor breathed against her ear, on his way to her shoulder.

Missy turned the next page and the tune shifted key. “There were no more musicians.”

* ~*~*

The Master stood in the rain facing the window. He was far enough into the yard that that he was reduced to  a distant blur . It was close enough, however, for him to make out the outline of Missy and the Doctor. He could hear music through the rain. It ate away at him. Jealousy? He wasn’t sure if that was the emotion he was searching for. It ran deeper than that.

*~*~*

Missy’s attention drifted to the window. She had a vague sense that there was something out there – beyond the sheets of water – watching them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gentle reminder that this fic is about to dive into its mature rating so... You know - last call for drinks and that sort of thing etc etc I hope you're all still with me on this.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... That happened.

That afternoon, Missy played for the children while the Doctor sang old Earth songs  until the world outside dimmed into night. The Doctor looked down at the sea of wide eyes, all moons and awe. They tried to sing along or played games in the background. Eventually the adults joined, collecting around the edges of the room with glasses of wine or mugs of tea. The workers from the field shared old stories  half-remembered  while a couple of them  fumbled for a dance .

Missy tapped away for hours – never tiring of it. Time Lords had a passion for music and she was no different. Music expressed what words could not, like telepathy. She used it to escape her various prisons. In this case, the Doctor imagined, she was transcending the finality of their fate. She was lifting her eyes to the ceiling as if it was filled with stars instead of loosely draped cobwebs. He knew the feeling well. How many hours had he strummed chords on his guitar, leaning against the TARDIS console?

B lind. Alone. The only thing he’d had left were a few stray notes.

Her patience for children was infinite. Thinking back,  _none_ of her regenerations  had harmed children. The Doctor was pretty certain that they were a chink in her armour – a ruffle of her raven feathers. He  watched her softly out of the corner of his eye.  The Doctor had one hand on the top of the piano  while he stood beside her.  T he other was nursing a glass.

The fireplace wasn’t perfect and left a dull scent of smoke on the air.  They burned pine cones and bark and a little later the bread rolls came out, interrupting festivities as the children fought each other for them. The Doctor took a break, lowering himself to the stool  to sit with her. She closed the book and pressed her hand reverently  on the cover  as if it were a living thing.

“Remind you of something?” He asked.

Missy fussed a little. They were sitting facing opposite directions. “Why do you say that?”

“You have that look...”

“How typically vague of you. I _think_ I am reminded of this exact moment.” She replied, nodding toward her younger version who had decided to lurk in the corner, watching intently. Whatever memories the Master was busy creating, they were leaking into Missy’s mind.

“Should we invite him over?”

Missy shook her head. “Best not. I don’t remember much but I can guess enough.”

“Enough..?”

“Let’s just say,” Missy continued, turning slightly on the stool so that she could see the Doctor better, “that I remember how I felt before I wound up on this mess of a ship and that’s not a mood I’d like to invite over for drinks – if that’s all right with you.”

“It’s up to you. Literally.”

She gripped his arm gently as a sort of ‘thanks’. “I remember something else too. Oh – no need to look so guilty,” she quickly added, when his eyes ducked away nervously. “ The present me is quite impressed.”

“...and the past you?” He asked shyly.

“No idea.” Missy was still holding his arm and rubbed her thumb against the fabric of his jacket. “This really is a ratty thing, you know...” She added. “Seventy years and aside from that fashion disaster of a dressing gown you’ve rarely worn anything else. Why?”

“Are you actually interested in my choice of clothing?” He was amused by her diversion. No one was paying them much attention at the moment. It was easy to forget that death lurked around the corner with the laughter and chatter behind. “I guess I just like it.”

She ran her hand all the way down to his sleeve where she picked at the loose thread.

“Don’t do that...” He frowned but her eyes shone. “Do you miss it?” He continued, letting her pull bits of his jacket out. “The life Mr Mysterious is leading over there in the shadows?” Missy avoided him entirely by maintaining the silence. The Doctor was learning. Missy preferred not to lie and this was her way of staying honest. Besides, he did not need her to speak for him to understand her meaning.

“For everything you took away,” Missy finally answered, “you gave something back. I am here, on this path with you because I want to be. We both know I’m clever enough to foil all your careful plans if that was truly what I wished.”

“I can’t deny that you have me there.” The Doctor found himself watching her slender fingers dipping in and out of his sleeve. She was fascinated by the damaged fabric. Perhaps it was the tangible passage of time that she craved. “Joking aside, Missy – can you escape the vault?”

“Why Doctor,” she purred, “I’m out of the vault now, aren’t I?”

“You know what I mean.”

She did. “ Yes and no.”  He sighed at her reply, bowing his head toward hers, always inching closer as if she were the sun and he, a lonely planet. “ Technically I can open the door but I made a promise that I wouldn’t.  _Yes and no._ ”

H e was startled by the blunt truth. “Missy, you sent me your confession dial.”  I f anything,  he moved closer.  The Doctor had a view of the room and  Missy –  the darkness beyond the window and yet all they chose to look at was each other. “ Why?”

She stopped playing with his sleeve and instead laid her hand, palm up, against his thigh. A moment later his hand was on hers, responding on instinct. “I knew that I was going to die.  Last stop. No more roses. The end.  Final thistle in the paddock ...” Somehow she was becoming progressively Scottish as she found different metaphors for ‘death’. “ The irony of course, was that only a Time Lord was allowed to perform the execution and you were it. Weirdly, the rest  of our brethren  were missing in action.  Something you said? ”  Definitely his fault. “So when I was  _absolutely_ sure I would never see you again  it became a fact that you’d be the last face this face saw.”

The Doctor caught  her subtext. “ Missy – look at me.” It took her a while. “If we ever die, it will be together or not at all.”

H er grip on his hand tightened. “Come now...” Her voice was so quiet he had to lean closer to hear it. “What have I told you about telling lies?”

“Missy, I’m not-” but her attention had wandered. She was staring right past him to the corner of the room where her younger self was busy slipping through the crowd on his way to the door. “Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know,” Missy replied, sitting back. “Excuse me.” She spun around and stood up.

“Shall I come with you?”

“No – no you stay here,” Missy insisted. “Keep an I on this lot. Like I said, I’ll deal with him.”

Then she was gone, following the Master leaving the Doctor in possession of a room full of expectant people. “Well – okay then – shall we have some more music?”

*~*~*

Outside the main room the rest of the house was cold and dark.  Electric moonlight cut harsh beams through the windows that lined the hallway. The shadows felt absolute, creating thick stripes across the ground which she stepped between.  _Light. Dark. Light. Dark._ Like the quiver of a pulsar.

Missy sensed his presence. It was an acute state of d éjà vu  that had her glancing nervously from side to side as fragments of memory filled her vision like the tattered edges of the Doctor’s coat.

_He was in the library._

Of course. It was  their chosen haunt to sulk. On Gallifrey there had been a particular corner  of the academy , up one of the ladders  onto a balcony that twisted out of sight  where the forgotten books lay askew,  disordered and falling over each other.  Missy remembered a narrow window at the end of the row, hidden from the rest of the library with a  view over the desert.  Sweeps of umber dunes and an equally parched sky mingled into one until the stars lifted together and split the twin planes with a dash of blue.  If she pressed her face to the glass she could see a single snow capped mountain to the right, dipping its toe into the desert.  Theta  often found her there, hand resting on the glass, musing. It was where they escaped to sit in perfect silence. Only their thoughts were allowed to wander – into each others minds. Were the things they did  in that state real? Did dreams count toward the sum of friendship?

She found the library door ajar. With everyone  congregated in the dining room  the candles that usually  warmed the  rest of the  farmhouse  sat unlit.  The corridors. The library – all of it was pitch except for what  little illumination it could steal from the night.

Missy slipped into the room and closed the door behind her, making sure she heard it  _click_ into place. There were even less windows in here which left the majority of it draped in black. She didn’t mind the dark. Sometimes she even found it a comfort but then, that’s what happened when you flirted with dangerous things.

“Why do we always sulk in libraries?” Missy asked the room. “Is this our new aesthetic? _Mournful academic nostalgia?_ ” He was nowhere. Her eyes searched but came up with uninspired rows of shelves, scattered chairs and a two lonely windows separated by a panel of solid black unknown, lingering beyond her vision. _The night is always darkest beside the stars._ Those words followed her around and they were always true.

H e was here somewhere. Her former self was an emotional nightmare. There was simply too much trauma for one face to take. The Doctor didn’t know the half of what that  regeneration saw. Missy paused. The Doctor didn’t know the half of what  _she’d_ s een . They waltzed around each other – meeting from dance to dance but the spaces in between the se  liaisons were vast.

“We’re not usually the ones to run away,” she added, walking toward one of the windows. Missy remained in the light. It curved around her body and caught in her eyes. “Come now, dear. I saw you watching. We have the same hearts. I know what makes them be-”

A hand reached from the dark, took Missy by the arm and dragged her into the shadows.

*~*~*

The Doctor’s fingers stumbled over the keys. He’d never  attained Missy’s talent for the piano. Guitars. Now that was more his thing.  Where she craved the structure of the classical pieces he embellished the disorder of wavering chords and added idle notes where they didn’t belong just to hear them rise above the tune.

O n paper they were incompatible but somehow they made the music work. He strummed out hopeful riffs over her melancholy symphony.  All this time, he was trying to teach her how to listen to the music but equally, Missy was showing him that  _she already did._ They heard different music. That was all. He believed the lie of starlight while she saw the horror of its destruction. Same universe. Different tempo.  Arcing back and forth.

“You’re properly _rubbish_ ,” said Nardole, wandering over.

“And you don’t eat or drink,” he replied, eyeing the bread roll in one hand and tea cup in the other. “Trying to impress someone with your human-y qualities?” The Doctor finished, with a pointed glance at Hazran.

“Don’t you start, Doctor. Notice how I very deliberately maintained a _no comment_ policy earlier?”

“All right.” He agreed. “But that doesn’t mean you can come and slander my playing. This thing is difficult. I don’t know how she managed it.”

“Because you’re trying to translate Earth songs onto a Mondasian piano,” Nardole pointed out. “You’ll have better luck if you play the pieces written for the instrument.”

* ~*~*

He took her by the mouth.  Missy growled in shock as her back hit the wall  in the chasm between the two windows, hard enough to hurt. His hand was tight on her arm, holding her in place as his  lips opened against hers – searching – diving down into her as if he were looking for the taste of another. It didn’t work. They were a mirror of each other, moving in the same direction but always apart. Missy reached up with her free hand and as his  kiss  dragged the first true moan unwillingly from her lips, she slapped him.  _Hard._

The Master startled at the sound and then winced. Missy followed with a decent  shove that sent him stumbling away.

Her eyes were dangerous. In the near pitch they met each other as shrikes. “Do that again,” she warned, “ and I’ll tear your stitches out.”

H e wiped the edge of his lip. Interesting. They tasted the same.

“Do not imagine for one moment,” Missy continued, sliding back up the wall. He’d pulled her down or tried to. He was rough and rash with his desires. “That I can’t see what you want.”

“I thought I made that rather obvious.”

Missy laughed in reply. Cruel, snickering laughter like the hissing of a snake.  It cut at the Master more sharply than her hand.

“Stop it!” He snarled back. It only grew louder. The Master watched as she pried herself off the wall and stepped into the light. She was _older_ than him – more dangerous. He wondered what she’d seen and done in those intervening centuries. Was she, underneath the smiles and saucer-eyes, worse than him?  Maybe the depths were like a river, worn deeper every year while the surface rippled longingly at those standing on the shore.

“Stop _what_?” Missy laid against the floor-to-ceiling window  instead. At the top it arched over and through its centre was a wooden divider that broke it up into dozens of panels. It looked like a waterfall beneath the constant downpour. _Sounded like one too – pounding into the metal grates beneath the glass._ Furious turmoil. How apt… Missy closed her eyes and felt the rain through the glass.

T he Master was moving towards her, keeping to the diagonal strip of black dividing the room. She did not need to open her eyes – he was seeing for her – writing the moment into her memory.  _Time can be re-written…_ Missy knew they were doing it  right now  and that she shouldn’t  keep tugging at the fabric of reality  but that devil on her shoulder, the whisper in ear kept baiting her with,  _‘why not?’_

Missy opened her eyes. The moonlight caught them like jewels. “Why not...” She murmured.

He was within reach. “Why not  _what_ ?” The Master was wary of Missy. She turned away from him and faced the window instead. He considered his future. Her hair was a halo of frizz unevenly tied ever so slightly to one side. The white blouse was loose around her arms, draping at her wrist and pulled tight with a red tie that she’d made into perfect bows. Her waist was wrapped in a thick black belt and beneath, layers of  skirts were draped at slightly different heights so their hem was an array of mischief. Missy’s boots were still drying  by the fire in the other room  leaving her nearly the same height as him.

S he heard him take the final step behind her. With both of her hands flat to the glass, she risked a breath.  The window misted – a fleeting halo of fog as Missy’s mind  went blank. If there were memories of this, she didn’t have them.

His hand risked the first touch, meandering around the stiff fabric of her belt until his palm was directly over her stomach. He pressed against her, causing her to  take half a step back into his chest – her hands still on the window.

“You’re cold...” He dripped the words into her ear as their cheeks brushed together.

“ _We’re_ cold,” Missy corrected him _and then moaned_ as his other hand gently nudged her head to the side so that his open mouth could find her neck. _That wasn’t cold_. Her belt snapped off and a hand tugged roughly at her blouse,  dislodging some of it out from the waistband of her skirt until a gap emerged and he dived between the fabric. _She moaned again_ as flesh met flesh and his fingers stroked the gentle ridges of her ribs.

“Isn’t there some sort of rule against this kind of thing?” The Master asked, following her vein to the base of her neck. He could hear the twin pulse of her hearts rising in time with his.

“Oh _probably_.”  Missy murmured in distraction. His other hand joined the fray at the waist of her skirt – slipped underneath and continued downwards. She bucked sharply backwards as those wandering fingers brushed the front of her cotton panties.

“I’m not sure what’s more alarming,” the Master waited for her to settle, stroking the underside of her breast through a layer of lace until she was nearly purring. She was getting heavier in his arms but it didn’t feel like submission. “That you chose that other outfit of yours to appeal to the Doctor’s kink-” he had to pause again. Missy was tilting her hips up to meet his hand. “-or that the Doctor has a kink for that sort of thing...”

“How do you – know it – was for him?” She asked, between dragging breaths.

“Because...” His voice dropped even lower, as one of Missy’s hands gave in and reached blindly for him. “Missy...” The Master’s fingers dipped right over the fabric covering her centre. “You were soaking when you walked in here tonight and it wasn’t for _me_.”

T hose delicious fin gers hooked around the edge of the fabric and sank straight through her in an arduous stroke – almost too firm but then she was rocking toward it, anticipating him. “ Go on...” She stirred. He threw her focus entirely with a sharp tug against her bra, wrenching the rough fabric over her peaked nipples. Her eyes snapped open and then a pair of fingers vanished inside her. All she could do to stop the world shaking was roll her head against his shoulder  and bit down on her own lip.

“Does our darling Doctor have the nerve to touch you like this?” The Master continued, curving his fingers while his thumb pressed right to her clit. “Or are those images flitting across my mind pure fantasy?”

_Shit._ Missy tried to pull herself back into focus. He wasn’t meant to see  _any_ of that.

“Nice piano in that vault.”

_Fuck_ . “Stay out of my mind.”

“ _Our_ mind, Missy and why should I? You’ve been in mine.”

“Are you going to talk or are we going to fuck?” Missy turned her head and held his gaze. Their lips weren’t an inch apart yet she wouldn’t allow him to kiss her again.

H is response was to untangle himself from her  body .  H e knelt down to the floor behind  and f or a moment Missy wondered what he was doing until she felt his hands steal under the hem of her skirts and run up her legs.  She was glad of the window against her free hand. Missy needed the solid surface to brace herself as the Master gripped her panties and wrenched them down with no mind for their survival.

“Take a little care.”

“That’s not what you like.” He returned to his feet as she stepped out of them.

Now Missy could hear him unfastening his belt.  _They were going to do this._ It was inevitable – like the flicker of andrapodismos in a pacifist’s eye .  Each  _‘clink’_ of metal against leather drove her  further toward madness .  A  _zip_ and rustle of material. She shrugged out of her blouse, allowing it to slide down her shoulders and fall between them. Missy reached around for the clasp of her bra but his hands were already there and a moment later it snapped free and she let the straps slacken and  slip from her arms.

“Don’t worry,” Missy replied, her voice silk as his index finger traced down her spine. The Master examined her as if she were a Rembrandt, taken out from its glass case. He had her shaking but she was never going to admit it. “I know _exactly_ what you like.”

“And what is that?” His hands splayed out over her skin, exploring what would soon be his. They wrapped around her waist then stroked her stomach, heading toward her breasts which he took into hand. An indescribable sound escaped Missy. She curved her neck and bit gently at his earlobe. What she murmured into his ear made the Master’s breath hitch.

Missy’s hands fell to her skirt. She caught them in the fabric, bunching it on both sides, hitching it up slowly. His hands were there with hers, helping lift away the layers until the moonlight illuminated her tapered legs.  The Master’s jacket lay abandoned on the floor along with his trousers but he’d kept his shirt. Open, it split apart until his pale skin caught the moonlight.

W here before he’d trespassed into her mind, this time Missy gifted him the debris of her desire – fallout from her racing lust.

_Suddenly it was the Doctor who placed his foot between hers, easing her stance further apart. It was_ him _whose shirt scratched against her naked back as their bodies melded into each other and_ his  _arm that held her in place as his cock pushed into her, making her lift onto her toes._

They whimpered in harmony.  The Master and the Mistress – lost in lies they spun for each other.

T here was nothing gentle about the  manner with which his hips crashed up against her arse or the way she sank back to him in opposition.  This was a horror film and she was trapped by her nightmare – his mouth on her throat and unabashed  _want_ settling in the back of her mind until she couldn’t tell what thoughts were hers.

“I knew you wanted him...” The Master mumbled into her skin. He was so deep inside her that he could feel every tremble of her nerves and clutch of pleasure. She was tumbling as fast her as mind and he wondered how long it had been since she’d allowed herself to fall this far. Missy’s narrow shoulders pressed back into his chest. She retaliated, fishing through his mind until she dragged one of his darkest secrets free. The Master’s hips snapped sharply, his tip nudging something that earned a sharp cry of pleasure. It echoed around the abandoned library, mingling with the shadows. The books, at least, would keep their secrets.

T he rest was a desperate, uncontrolled spiral into hysteria. His hand returned to part her folds and tease around where they met. She groaned and writhed, pushing them farther until their desperate fuck slipped over the edge turning hurried moans into  a piercing cry.

It was the first time he’d had his future self exposed – mind wide open. There was only one word written there.  _Theta._ She howled it beneath the silence  before their lust fell to ashes.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ***moderately worried by the silence***

He stepped away and she relinquished her grip.  Her  skirts fall back into place  with a rustle of fabric  that  did little to calm the throb between her thighs or the wet  drip he’d left  running down her skin.  For a moment she needed that window. Her palm pressed against it leaving a sweaty print surrounded by mist.  _Finally_ her skin was warm to the touch,  enlivened by a set of racing hearts .  She snapped her hand away from  the glass w ith the reality of what they’d done.

T he worst  of it was the  inescapable fact that  they’d do it  all  again..

S he turned to watch the Master buckling up his pants.  Her mind  imagined him moving inside her – filling her with that aching stretch the Doctor had never dared  during all those years in the vault .  He treated her like glass but  _this –_ it was  a memory she’d keep a thousand years.

M issy followed  the Master’s lead, redressing in silence  pausing only to scorn  at a missing button on the front of her blouse .  The lonely thread of material  quivered, sharing the violence of its death where it had been ripped off in haste.  Darkness branched over the floor around her, too deep for her to search on her hands and knees. Instead, she tucked her shirt into the waistband of her skirt and hid the casualty with her belt.

As she finished, the Master dipped toward the floor.  He  retrieved his jacket, dusted it off and draped it over his arm to hide a fresh speckle of blood ruining the white shirt.

She’d torn his stitches after all.

“Well, Missy...” He drawled, striking a match he found on the table at the far end of the room. It snapped into life, flaring against the darkness with a tiny ball of heat. He lowered it onto the wick of an oil lamp then shook it into death with a wash of smoke.

The mood of the room shifted as he turned the wick up. Where before shadows and pale light crept violently along the walls, now the library  filled with a welcoming glow.  Hundreds of books with handmade spines littered the walls,  sheeted in dust and cobwebs . They were beautiful  in their imperfection – so why did it  echo mausoleum?  Each one a ghost. A voice buried in the ground outside living only through the pages – never to be opened again.

“At least we can say that we lived before we died.” He grinned to himself.

“It was only a fumble in the dark when no one was looking.” Missy ran her fingertips over her hair but it was an irrecoverable wreck. Deciding it was less conspicuous, she pulled the tie out and left it hanging freely at her shoulders in a wave of chaos.

“Talk about overstepping lines...” It was uncanny – how she said aloud what he was thinking. Word for word. He watched her approach, eyeing the colour fading from her face and a sheet of sweat sticking a mess of hair against her forehead. He _loved_ that he’d dragged her perfection down a peg or two. 

The Master sank into one of the damaged chairs. Its leather was dry, cracking sharply as his weight settled.  It nearly absorbed him. “ I’m  really not sure what’s more wrong...”  He continued,  amused by their new reality.

“Is it necessary to compare each other? You’ll ruin the afterglow.”

The Master wasn’t deterred in the slightest. “You imagining that I’m _him_ when we fuck,” and there was no point denying that. He’d seen her desire stripped naked. It left him shaken. “Or-”

“Or you imagining that you’re watching the _same damn thing_...” Missy cut him short. “We’re both _equally_ messed up, you moron.  That’s rather the point.”

“It’s not exactly the first time we’ve fancied ourselves.” All the Master really needed was a mirror.

Missy narrowed her eyes as  her approach came to a stop at the foot of his chair. Beneath, the Master was broadcasting a petulant façade but his insides were warring. “What rubbish are you even on about?” She  picked him apart . “It’s  _always_ Theta when we come.”  H is protest was a lot of noise entirely devoid of truth.  Missy waited for it to end. “Did you  _honestly_ try to pretend that we’re not in love with him?”

F eigned disgust. A hiss of spite. He went to stand but Missy blocked his path with another step forward, barricading him into the chair.

“I might not remember this moment but I remember _being_ you. Right. I remember our dreams...” Her eyes flickered closed for a moment. Oh, they were always so beautiful. So passionate.

He wished that she would stop sinking into his thoughts.

“I remember what we were thinking,” she continued, eyes on him again, “lying in his arms as we died – every time.” Now he shifted uncomfortably beneath her. The thoughts at the moment of death were the most pure and she knew every line. “What I am trying to understand is why you won’t admit any of this – _to me_.”

It was especially ludicrous after what they’d done in this room. Even the Master recognised the absurdity. _Rationally_ he was aware  but saying it aloud? Owning the truth... That was something else entirely. He didn’t even say it to himself. _He mentally cringed at the irony._ Every time he tried the words  came twisted beside black emotions, clenching at his chest. All the reasons – that symphony of resilience, it distilled to one painful admission.

“Because he loves _you_.”

Missy wasn’t sure why her breath caught  _but it did_ .  It stuck right in the back of her throat as his words rolled over the space between them. “Oh hell man,” she recovered, “for such a smart and dashing creature you really are  intensely stupid.”

“ _I’m_ stupid? You were the one wearing a hat with half a dead bird on it earlier.”

“He loves _us._ We’re not competing. _We’re the same person._ Your wounds with him are fresh so you square off against each other like a couple of fighting dogs. He and I have had time to mellow.” Decades and decades. The anger – it faded. “What’s beneath the surface – hmm – after you peel off all that rage you’re swaggering around with? _The same thing._ ”

He was uncomfortable  under her prying gaze. The Master could sense her nipping about at the corner of his mind – teasing the edges. He pushe d her away. “I want to kill him.” He replied darkly. “Not pretend to kill him or bandy about idle threats on a roof top…  _Actually_ kill him.” The Master wanted to feel the Doctor’s blood run down his hands and drip onto the floor. He  _needed_ the satisfaction.

“I know...” Missy breathed back her reply. _The truth terrified her._ “Be that as it may,  your violent fantasies have no relevance.”

“No relevance?” He mocked her absurdity.

She decided to prove it  instead of fight him . Without a word, Missy sank slowly to her knees in front of his chair. All she did was lift her eyes and hold his gaze. Two sets of blue eyes locked together.  _This is what he wanted but not from her. This is what she’d seen._

The Master dug his fingers into the arms of the leather chair.  _Oh, she was clever._ There was nowhere for him to run and no place to bury his thoughts.

Missy waited until the images of his lust were so powerful they flooded across the link between them.  A smirk caught the edge of her lip. The Master did not have an ounce of bravery when it came to his heart.

“You’re _spineless..._ ” She spat, standing up. Missy leaned across and reached into the breast pocket of the Master’s jacket, dragging out a crimson handkerchief she knew would be in there. She tossed it into his lap and turned to leave.

He bit back – the only door open to him  after such a brutal undressing . “So are you...” He replied, voice unsteady.

Missy hesitated at the handle of the door.  _She knew that already._

* ~*~*

Hours later, the Doctor remained ensconced at the piano. The children had been sent to bed leaving the adults nestled happily in their own corners of the room, which had mellowed further in the glow of the fire. They’d formed pairs or groups to idle away the night. A sheet of smoke from the fireplace lapped to the edges of the room where it swirled like incense. The Doctor exhaled slowly and lowered the cover over the piano’s keys.

He flicked through one of the journals Missy had been reading earlier, learning about the first years trapped on the ship.  He listened to the voice s on the page – long dead –  until it struck an unsettling bond to reality.  Maybe he’d spent so much time flitting between one distress call and the next that he’d begun to think of people like pieces on a chess set instead of living, breathing creatures. This wasn’t just a doomed spaceship about to be torn  asunder – it was a home  and he couldn’t save it.

“Here’s trouble…” said Nardole, nodding as the Master entered the room and headed straight for the remainder of the wine. When Missy didn’t follow, he dropped his gaze to the Doctor. “Should we be worried?”

“I’m always worried about Missy,” the Doctor replied. He closed the journal and handed it to Nardole.

“You’re not going to leave, are you?” Nardole held the book to his chest. “Crazy over there is getting serious with that bottle.”

“Missy’s missing.”

Nardole wasn’t so sure it was a good idea to go and look for her. There had been some down right  _weird_ tension between those two that the Doctor was either overlooking or wilfully blocking  it  out. “I think maybe just leave it. I bet she’s bored of us and gone to bed. Hazran was organising her own room for tonight.”

The Doctor was on his feet. “Her shoes are beside the fireplace. She left her books on the table. There’s no wine in her room.” To him, this amounted to an  erogenous equation. “ If the he gives you any trouble just use the same trick you pulled on River when we were at that desert  banquet .”

Nardole was not happy and that’s how the Doctor left him.

*~*~*

Hazran made good on her promis e . Missy had her own room. It was poky, pushed into the centre of the house and boarded on all sides. What it lacked in windows it made up for in lamps. They were placed around the edge of the  wall like stars, boiling away. The ir oil left a vague scent of Citronella on the air which met the fresh waft of perfume from the cut flowers in an increasingly confused embrace. She coughed it out of her lungs.  _Humans were weird._

Her few possessions  lay on the bed along with a pair of towels. The entire farmhouse was such an incongruous medley of ‘provincial spaceship’ that she’d given up trying to find patterns in the logic a long time ago. The high-backed copper bath in the corner was a perfect example. There were two things this level of the ship had in abundance; water and fire – so she settled on having a bath.

* ~*~*

T he Doctor roamed through the house  dutifully carrying Missy’s boots and a bottle of wine. At no point did it occur to him that he cut a strange image. If anything, this felt like home. He’d lost track of how many of her things he’d carted to and from the vault. He was suspicious that several of her requests had been made purely to test his limits. He’d drawn a firm line at, ‘ponies’ but not cats. Of course he wouldn’t let her  _actually_ keep one as a pet but he did kidnap the university cat for visits every other Tuesday. Tuesdays were the days that she smiled the most. He loved Tuesdays.

* ~*~*

Missy slid further into the hot water, letting it take her into the depths. The copper edges of the bath came up around her like one of Gallifrey’s mountain ranges, all orange and pink, unable to settle on either. She washed the sweat out of her hair and the Master from her skin. She flinched at the bruises. They were scattered over her body – most from the barn door and rough landing in the space shuttle. A few were a complete mystery and the base of her head was so sore she couldn’t lean it against the tub without laying to one side.

Alone, she thought about that moment earlier in the day. _How would she ever look Nardole in the eye after he’d plucked her from the ground and carried her back to the house?_ She remembered trying to tear at his shoulder, wailing against all the world and he’d been gentle. Best to avoid him forever. They weren’t going to live that long anyway.

H er daughter.

The memories kept drifting to the surface. Like shaking a box of sand, they always appeared when her world fell apart.  Imagination was Missy’s curse. Her vibrant talent for manifesting realities in her mind clung to her like a  nightmare . Right now her eyes shone with the reflection of the flames – her family house ablaze in an inferno so intense it looked like a second sun  setting at the foot of the mountains.

“No...” Missy closed her eyes and placed her hand over her face. She couldn’t do this right now. She was _out_ of emotion. Numb. That was all she had left. _Nothing._

W hen she opened her eyes  the  wooden planks on the wall sta red back.

“ _Missy?”_

H er eyes widened.  Another echo?  _No._ The Doctor  called her name  plaintively  through the door.

“Doctor I-” she was going to warn him not to come in but the door was already opening and she had nowhere to hide but deeper in the bath.

“Missy are you in – _oh_...” The room was tiny so there was no possible way that he’d fail to notice the startled head peeking out from the edge of the bath. “ You’re alive!”

He appeared genuinely relieved.

“Should I be alarmed that you’re surprised?”

The Doctor was quite oblivious to her being in a bath and proceeded to enter the room, closing the door behind him. Maybe there were no boundaries after seventy years in a vault. He set her boots on the floor beside the bed and held up a bottle of wine. “I rescued this,” he opened, with a proud grin.

She found a smile at his enthusiasm. “Let me get this straight,  _Mr President_ ,” Missy riled him playfully on purpose. “You think your best friend in the  _entire_ universe might just possibly be dead and you – you what? Bring wine?”

“You’re my _second_ best friend.” He countered, putting the bottle on the tiny table pushed up against the side of the room. It had entirely escaped his notice that she had no way of opening it and no glasses if she succeeded. He wasn’t the most practical Time Lord  but he was easy to forgive.

“Liar. God do you _ever_ tell the truth?”

“Always.”

“ _And_ the Liar’s Paradox. It must be my lucky night.” Damn everything to hell when he smiled at her like that. Missy’s lustful thoughts never captured _this_ Doctor. Not that smile  which caused her hearts to flicker in their cage. “I told you not to worry,” she added, relaxing a little. She used the edge of the bath as a shield to hide herself from view. “It would be extremely counter-productive to kill myself, if that’s what you’re worried about. Even the cub knows that. Nardole, however...”

“Nardole likes you.”

“He _endures_ me. Sit down...” Missy added, frustrated by watching him pace. The bed was the only place to sit so he lowered himself onto it and sat there awkwardly, preening his battered coat. A normal person would have dropped the gifts, checked her pulse and left but he seemed to be settling in. “How did you go with the instrument?” She asked, when she could bear the silence no longer.

He shrugged. “It likes you better than me.”

“That’s because you miss your guitar.” Missy looked kindly at him as he nodded. “It doesn’t miss you. Only been a few minutes since we left.”

“Not even.”

“Neither of us take kindly to the slow path...” Missy took hold of the edge of the bath so that she could rest her chin on the back of her hands. “Where’s a pocket watch when you need one, eh?”

“Does it ever bother you that we are _both_ more agreeable as humans?” Every single time they stripped away their memories and submitted to the mundane human existence they became _good_. Not Time Lord good – real, honest, human good.  He wondered, if only for a moment, what would happen if they _both_ forgot themselves. Would they still be friends? Maybe they only craved each other for the flickers of darkness  in-between the smiles.

“Darling, the word you’re reaching for is _boring_.” Missy replied.

“Humans aren’t boring.”

“Oh yes they are...” she insisted, with a drawl. “You treat them like curiosities and that’s _fine_. Everyone has to have a hobby and yours is Earth. Mine is burning planets.”

“We were trying to find you a new hobby.” The Doctor muttered quietly. So far she hadn’t taken to any of the other activities quite as passionately as her inclination for destruction. Instead of _reform_ the Doctor suspected that her main achievement  over the years was _restraint._ It wasn’t quite the same thing but as long as lives were being saved, he was going to count that as progress. “ Did you do something to the Master?”

Missy bit the edge of her lip. “What makes you ask that?”

He shrugged. “Nothing particularly except that he was determined to drown his sorrows  as soon as he returned . Were you mean about his face?”

“That was _you_.” Missy pointed out, dipping her hair back into the water. She liked the sudden rise of heat against her scalp. When she came back up she had expected to find the Doctor watching her intently but he was laying on the bed, staring at the ceiling – pondering.  He was so very like the little Gallifreyan schoolboy, lost in his own world. “We had some issues to work though.” Missy settled on. “He’ll be all right. _You_ are the one that needs to be careful around him.”

“It’s fine.”

Missy shook her head. “No. Not really. He’s set his mind on killing you. The only reason he hasn’t done it already is that he’s not sure how to get out of this mess. You might be useful. The minute the Master finds an ‘out’ he’ll come for you.”

“You’ve never managed to kill me before.” He paused. “Okay well not very often.”

“Pass me a towel.”

“Hmm?” The Doctor looked around and saw the towel on the floor beside the bath. It was the first time he’d actually noticed that Missy was lounging in the hot water. Steam rose around her, swirling through the air, catching the glow of the lanterns. He could see the curves of her naked shoulders but the rest of her body was pressed against the tub, hidden.

H e rolled off the bed and crossed  to her , retrieving the towel. He knelt on the floor in front of the tub so that they were at eye level. Missy  peered  down  from her perch at the edge of the bath . Her normal halo of dark frizz was laid slick against her scalp. It made her eyes more blue.

“Is this what you were after?” He asked.

Missy reached out for the towel – her arm dripping over the floor as she took  hold . The action lifted her body slightly  a nd he averted his eyes as the expanse of pale flesh increased. He’d forgotten to let go of the towel and as Missy dragged back on it, he found himself rocking forward slightly.

_He was such an idiot._ Missy thought, fondly. He’d always been startled by displays of affection. Some people wrongly assumed that was down to inexperience but she  _knew_ it was rooted in his fear of rejection. Missy didn’t reject him. She never had. Instead, she dipped forward just a little and kissed his cheek softly before shaking him off her towel.

“Thank you,” she murmured, “now turn around.”

H e faced the door and clasped his hands in front of his body for something to do. All he could hear was the rush of water off her body hitting the copper edges of the bath and her feet stepping onto the  floorboards . She dripped over everything. For the Doctor, time slowed until he could pick out every individual drop shattering at her feet. He tried not to imagine what it looked like. Her pale skin, aglow in the lamp light – dark hair leaving rivers of water running down her spine.

“Doctor?” Missy tapped him gently on the shoulder. He was lost in his mind.

The Doctor turned and found Missy  swamped by the towel . Her wet hair was draped over one shoulder and a few stray drops of water captured the lamp light, practically on fire.

“Missy...” He breathed, in sudden despair. He brushed his fingertips softly over the dark bruises that ran over the curve of her shoulder. “What-?” He spun her around carefully and found her back covered in them. She shied away from his hand when he noticed the dried blood in her hair that hadn’t quite washed away. “Did he do this to you?” His voice rose in anger.

She faced him  again  and shook her head. “This was all me...”  The colour leached from his face. “I uh – it doesn’t matter...” Missy trailed off. She wandered over to the bed and sat down.

He looked at her for a long tim e, searching for the words. He knew what it was like to hit something until you felt the pain – to want it just for the sake of wanting  _something_ to bleed through the cracks of the world. They were so alike that it hurt. “ What do you need?”

Missy had expected a lecture – or rage – or tears. She held out her hand to him. He stepped forward at once, taking it firmly with both of his. Missy dragged him in toward her,  raised their entwined hands to her lips and kissed the back of his softly.

“Missy – I wish you’d tell me what’s going on,” he whispered, as she pressed her cheek to his hand in the most tender moment of comfort he’d seen her seek. Why did he always feel like a sailor cast adrift by her? Every moment a different sea – horizon grey and the fog setting in. All he had was a lantern to the storm. “This is about more than facing your past.”

“You’re wrong,” she murmured in reply, still holding his hand. She’d latched onto it as though it were the only thing tying her to reality. “Facing my past is _exactly_ what this is about. The Master is only one page. There are others. Darker chapters. Things I’d rather forget. Do – do you think you might stay with me tonight?” Her voice was so timid – so hopeful. “ I don’t want to be alone any more.”

The Doctor, his hand trapped,  sank on to the bed beside her and fixed Missy with his enormous grey eyes. “I promised you a thousand years.” A soft whimper escaped her throat as he spoke. “And I’d give you a thousand more.” Her forehead pressed against his shoulder. He brought his free arm up, wrapping it around her waist until it settled on her hip and shifted her closer.  She was all  wet and smelled of smoke and oil.  “You can have  _all_ my years, Missy. We’ve wasted too many as it is.”

Missy felt her soul unravelling  in his arms. Her deepest, darkest desire clutched tightly to her hearts  _was simply this_ . To hold his hand. To accept this friendship they’d forged when they were children.  To admit, finally, that it was okay to need each other.

“E-every star...” It was barely a murmur.

“All of them.” He promised.

The Doctor slipped off his  boots and shuffled into the centre of the bed, taking her with him. There he laid  while Missy, still wrapped in her towel and damp around the edges, curled up against his side with one hand splayed at the centre of his chest.  _This was more than love._ Missy understood love and so did the Doctor. They’d both loved other Time Lords and a scattering of humans. They’d lived whole lives with them but  _this,_ whatever this was, it filled the gaps between the darkness. She wondered if the loom had crossed a few of their threads together by accident because Missy was bound to him.  Every face. Every life. It always came down to this...

Missy fell asleep in his arms so fast that he  never had the chance to finish whispering a song.  W hen he looked across  he found her eyes closed and breath steady.

He was absolutely  _terrified_ of what lay before them but he’d never let her see it in his eyes. Death was coming for him, he knew that. He might be an idiot in a box but he could still read the writing on the wall. It was coming for her too. The Doctor could not stand to think of it. Her death was beyond his ability to rationalise and yet the fantasy visited him in his dreams. Glass eyes staring up at the sky. Her lips, pale and cold. These things clawed their way so deep inside him that he struggled to draw breath.

Every star in the universe?  The only star they’d ever see was the black eye tearing at the ship.


	11. Chapter 11

Hammered.

Shit faced.

Minkit.

Four sheep short of a fleece – or as close as a Time Lord could get to it.

The Master stumbled out into the night with  an empty bottle clutched in one hand,  its glass sticky with dried wine and regret . He stopped in the fake moonlight and lifted his head to the ‘sky’. The rain had stopped and the clouds were breaking apart leaving a nice, unsettling view of the level number  stamped in the heavens.  _How to send the humans mad_ , he thought. A proper halo of stars would have been a better choice. Who the hell wants to look up and see their prison number loitering overhead?  That’s engineers for you – always thinking practically instead of pragmatically.

His foot twisted in a patch of mud and sent him crashing to his knees. The Master startled, losing hold of his empty bottle which rolled off into the night. The mud was cold where it sank through his clothes while the ground was obscured by layers of mist. He swept his hand through the silver ocean. It curled in silent waves through his fingers. _Simple physics._ Toss a few ingredients like rain and heat into the mix and the rest of the illusion built itself.  A little more wine and it might fool him good and proper.

The shadow of the barn lay ahead.

He fumbled in the mud, eventually latch ed onto a fencepost  and hauled himself up . Barbed wire snapped at his hand, making him flinch away with a hiss. The Master crossed the fiel d, chuckling manically to himself the whole way. Why could none of the others hear the  _thrum_ of the Cyberman city beneath their feet? Louder and louder. They churned the flesh and scorched the sanity from the tatters of humanity. Such a wonder he had built.

_Well…_ Encourage d .

It would be unfair to take all the credit for the Mondasian Cyberman. You had to give humanity a little for coming up with gruesome solutions  to perfectly benevolent problems . All he’d ever done was  _build_ on their creativity. Give it a bit  _jazz_ . Spruce the place up a bit.  Mind you, he wasn’t so  hot on it all now. What happened if you turned a Time Lord into a Cyberman?  _No idea._ No one had ever managed it before and he wasn’t keen on being a guinea pig.

Filthy from his fall , he  faced the barn door. It was locked from the outside,  s ealed shut with a two foot bolt, rusted at the edges and poorly fashioned. There was a dark smear of blood near the bottom and the remnants of a scuffle in the mud.

H e did not know what drew him here. Madness. Curiosity. The tiniest fragments of remorse… He’d thrown the Doctor’s pet into the flames on a whim for nothing more pure than  the  want  of  watc h ing his face fall in horror. He  _loved_ that look – that total wretched despair where the eyebrows went up and the Doctor’s eyes glassed over.  What he  wouldn’t give to snatch those hearts and hang them up with the stars  in a terrifying effigy  to misplaced affection.

I nside the barn, the Master found a lonely lantern burning through its sea of oil. Someone had hung it from a cross bea m on the roof to keep it away from the floor and all the hay littered  there . It swung, ever so slightly, tipping backwards and forward like a pendulum.

A primitive Cyberman lay beneath  with its metal face staring up into nowhere. The halo of light from the lantern rose and set on  the breastplate in an infinite season. A panel of lights flickered silently, counting down the internal programming that was going to town on Bill’s sanity – rewriting whole swathes of her life with a wide brush of  _nothing._

The Master stared at her.  _It._ Stared at  _it._

Eleven years he’s shared a tiny room with the Doctor’s pet – that was ten more years that the Doctor spent with her. In that time he’d heard every whisper of  Bill’s life. A dreary little human life it was too – full of  rue and vast chasm s of mediocrity.  How did they even survive, he wondered, chained to ever y second of reality?  _Tick. Tick. Tick._ The universe lived one second at a time. Utter madness.

To think the that was what the Doctor had forced upon Missy… What right did he have to lock her in a vault? Seventy years of hell with only his stupid face for comfort? It had changed – him – them… Changed them into a creature the Master saw only as a stranger.  He could not fathom that future  or her nauseating altruism that had been left to fester.

“God, you were dull...” He muttered, half-sitting, half-falling to the ground. “So bloody dull.” His words had a slight slur to their edges, mellowed by the wine. “You know, I once considered taking that heart-box from your chest and using it as a battery pack – _that’s_ how little I cared. Why did I keep you alive?” He asked, as if Bill were awake to  answer his questions, “Solely so the ol’ Doc could watch you taken apart. And _what_ a show. Great reveal… Perfect drama – honestly you should consider Broadway.  You could play the Tin Man.”

And all those nights sitting side by side in their chairs watching a static frame on the TV – what ha d those meant? When she’d made him laugh was that a true moment of levity? That night he’d cried – was that all part of the lie?  Where did an act begin… Could he even pick those pieces apart once laid? Eventually all the games became real until every line washed away as sure as the rain.

He lifted his hand as if to drown another bottle but it was gone. All he had was the lamp light and the flicker of Bill’s conscience overwriting one moment at a time.

* ~*~*

_Gallifrey’s sky shed light in dying gasps as its pair of stars danced toward the dunes. The faces of the mountains shifted into pink, cut only by the black rock peeking beneath the glaciers. A filthy smear of smoke ruined the vista. It lifted, clawing into the sky with surges of rage and ash._

_Red grass ghosted at Missy’s waist. She reached out – palms grazing their sharp tips that traced her skin like a hundred knife points. Her blood was indistinguishable from their crimson faces, dripping down onto the sheaths. Teardrops of hell._

Morning.

Missy’s eyes opened with the memory of smoke. It took a moment to fade until she blinked the terror away and banished it with the other ghosts. Only one of the oil lamps was aglow. It quivered at the darkness of her windowless room.

The Doctor was beneath her, asleep with his steady breaths lifting her body. She’d laid across him during the night, partially unravelling from her towel so that her naked chest hid against his shirt. His hand was on her back where it formed of a puddle of energy that seeped straight into her spine from between his bandages. The towel remained tangled at her waist, its edges damp while one of her wayward legs hooked around his.

She listened to his hearts beating beneath her ear. One, then the other. At the moment they were steady. He was warm, too. She lounged on him like a lizard to a rock – basking in the faint afterglow of time that he leaked into the world.

Everything was simple when they were like this. She understood the sleepy twitch of his fingers at the base of her back and the soft murmur of his breath that almost sounded like her name.

“Missy...”

_It was her name._

“You’re awake?” She replied, frozen. Her naked figure tensed but his fingers continued their soft play across her skin until she softened again. It seemed he had no inclination for her to flee.

“For a little while now,” he admitted. “You – you were dreaming.” Her nightmares had woken him. Missy was a powerful telepath and sometimes she shared things she didn’t mean to. It wasn’t the first time he’d been privy to her dreams and every time they frightened him. The early decades in the vault had been the worst. All those nights he’d stayed, draped in of the chairs beyond the containment field while she screamed for hours… She’d flung herself against the forcefield only for it to _crack_ like thunder. They _both_ chose to forget.

M issy did not want to know how much he’d seen – if anything. “I lost my towel.” She muttered instead, burying her head deeper into his chest.  His soft laugh vibrated against her cheek in reply.

“Yes, I rather think you did.”

He shifted slightly and  then  Missy felt a kiss placed into her hair. She knew it was all straight and knotted, probably a complete  disaster that fell somewhere past her shoulders. In  return , Missy tilted her head backwards to look at  up at him . The fire  from their sole lantern smoothed the weary lines of a face well lived and left his silver hair the colour of Gallifrey’s sky.  This time, he came for her lips – tilting his head at the last moment – his eyes falling closed as they brushed together in a tender  caress that ended as quickly as it began. It took Missy several moments to recover  until she finally opened her eyes and saw him smile.

“Morning...” She managed, trying to focus anywhere but his lips. He didn’t help by darting his tongue over them, tasting where she’d been, leaving them damp and enticing. “I uh...” But her coherency faltered as both his hands took her by the hips and dragged her up toward his mouth.

This time they brawled – catching her breath in a hitch as his lips parted under hers with barely masked demand. Missy fell into his kiss – her mind a blur. The heat inside him was infinite. She sought it out, tongue dipping between his lips as her body shifted. Her leg slid over his until she was astride his body, his waist between her thighs. The sudden weight of her against his groin earned a moan that she stifled with another heavy kiss.

_Thousands of years._ That’s how long it had been since she’d felt that solid press of want against her flesh.

The towel slipped away, forgotten somewhere as her knees  dug into the  bedding . His fingers gripped her hips, latching onto her flesh as she pulled back, cocked her head the other way and drowned the Doctor with another kiss. One of her hands stroked at his hair – so soft under her touch.  Missy added a moan of her own when she felt his hands slide over the curve of her backside, cupping her so that he could draw her body even closer.

The Master was wrong about her. She  _wasn’t_ a coward. At the feel of the Doctor’s hips rising up to hers,  Missy reached around  and took both of his hands captive.  He pulled back  from her lips , confused as he watched her gui de them up behind his head where she pressed them down into the bed and entwined them with hers – palm to palm.

He felt vulnerable, with his hands pinned intimately above his head and her naked body on him but she gazed down with such clarity that his reply to her silent question came out as a whisper.

“Yes...” It was the only word that the Doctor needed to say. _Yes to everything._

And there it was – her  _danger_ . It rippled up to the surface and shone through her  blue  eyes as vividly as he remembered. Lust. Lust for  _him_ . This was not the first time he’d found himself on the other side of her undivided attention  and it was quite a thing to behold.

Missy’s grip tightened. Weight shifted. The Doctor found himself pushed even further into the bed with an alarming flush of pressure to his groin as her hips rocked in hunger.  He could see a glisten in between her legs that sent all kinds of thoughts rushing through the scant inches between them.

“I see you looking,” she called him out, when his eyes roamed over her breasts. Missy freed one of his hands so that he could explore and immediately regretted it. Her focus broke the second his thumb circled over a nipple. _So long_ she’d thought about how he’d feel. _Warm_ was then answer – _alive_. He was buzzing with stolen energy and it raced over her skin wherever he touched her. “Again...” she stammered, when he lifted his head and placed his lips against her breast. Missy forget everything except the flick of his tongue over her  skin – arching her back sharply.

T he door opened with a god-awful  _creak!_

Indecipherable Gallifreyan screeched out of Missy’s throat as she rolled off the Doctor and vanished off the bed followed by a rather loud  _thump_ . The towel, still caught on her leg, went with her.

The Doctor startled upright.

“Missy!” He panicked, looking to his left at the empty space where Missy had been. _“Nardole!”_ He growled furiously  to his right, where Nardole was rooted to the doorway – mouth agape.

“Well, I _never_...” Nardole’s eyes were twice as wide as normal. He was was pretty certain he’d just seen a naked Time Lord tumble off a bed. Advanced alien race indeed. Above such things. Lies – all of it. Pure fabrication. Beneath those theatrical robes and gold collars they were all racing hearts and tingling loins like the rest of the damn universe.  That said, _a bit of warning would be nice._

“What the _hell_ are you doing here?” The Doctor continued to storm.

“Looking for Missy!” Nardole replied. It wasn’t just ‘morning’, they were well into ‘day’. Light flooded the room, branching around Nardole along with the general hum of noise from the house. “I’d ask what you’re doing in here but the answer to that is rather obvious.”

Missy found her feet  and appear ed suddenly behind the bed, wrapped in a towel with a crazy mess of hair  that made her look positively wild.

_Fierce,_ actually. Nardole found himself alarmed at the look in her eyes.  _This is how Gazelle feel when the lionesses are out._ “It’s almost lunch time. I was worried.  Came to see if you were dead. Obviously won’t be making that mistake again.”

“Whatever you’re thinking,” the Doctor floundered, “I want you to _stop_ – just – no! _Missy!_ ” He quickly shifted his attention to the other Time Lord. He got up and circled around on Missy, who had decided to advance ominously toward Nardole. “Missy _no_!”  The Doctor had to catch her arm to hold her back.

That didn’t stop her hissing at the android. “I’m going to dismantle you in order of market value!”

“You won’t get much for me,” Nardole shrugged calmly, “your _friend_ ,” and he really drawled that word for maximum effect, “is as cheap as they come. You’d make more selling me as performance art.”

H is excellent humour did absolutely nothing to temper Missy’s fury. “ Yeah – well maybe I’ll melt you down and make your into something more useful – like a lock for that door.”

“It _does_ actually have one, you know...” Nardole lowered his hand and flipped the silver lock up and down. “Most advanced race in the universe with absolutely no common sense.” God, he was _never_ going to get that image out of his head. He’d have to file it away with all the damaging shit he’d endured throughout the River years.

“Name one reason I should keep you alive...” Missy seethed.

“The Doctor has a list but right now how about we start with the small problem of your younger self.”

“What’s he gone and done now?”

“He’s _missing_.”

*~*~*

“You need a leash for her,” said Nardole, shot gun over his shoulder and beanie pulled down against the cool of the forest.

Missy  thrashed through the forest ahead of them, leading the search for the Master. She claimed to have no memory of this and yet she seemed to know  exactly where she was going. Missy had tried to explain the phantom feeling that drove her but neither of them followed and  so she’d lost patience  with their insect minds.

Earlier, a fter she’d dressed and joined them in the hall  outside her bedroom , Nardole had suffered a fresh wave of extremely colourful verse – not all of it in languages he could understand.  Well she was still building a fresh log of insults to toss at him later. This wasn’t over.  For the moment she took out her aggression on the  foliage.

“Just because Missy doesn’t show _you_ compassion does not mean that she is entirely devoid of it,” the Doctor replied. He carried his screwdriver, sweeping it ahead of him every now and then – searching for energy signatures. “Missy does – and has always had – an immense capacity for compassion.”

“Could have fooled me.” Nardole ambled along.

He shook his head. No one understood because they hadn’t lived those years  with the Master . “Her heart was broken so many times that she  chooses to keep it locked away. We see her only through the cracks.”

“She looks at me like I’m a supermarket and she has an unlimited credit card.”

“And you look at her like she was dredged up from Dante’s inferno.” The Doctor shook his sonic screwdriver, as if that would somehow help. It ‘bleeped’ angrily in return. “You are not a shop and she is not a monster. Time Lords – they’re like planets...” He continued. “The older they are the more complex they become. Their faces are like the ages of the Earth – definitive slices of their lives which exist in contradiction but somehow make up a history.”

The forest was wet and dripped over them as they hunted deeper.

“Seriously though...” Nardole lowered his voice, ensuring Missy wouldn’t overhear. “Are you _sure_ you want to – you know – with her… Those are some very hazy lines you’re drawing. A lesson in moral ambiguity with benefits on the side? You don’t think that might end up a mess?”

The Doctor flinched, uncomfortable with where this was going. Nardole existed to ask the hard questions – that was the whole reason River had insisted he hang around after she was gone. The Doctor needed a compass. “We used to.”

“Yep. Guessed that. You two are all moon-eyes – even the other one. That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.”

“I’m not having this conversation.”

“Which is _exactly_ my point. If you can’t even discuss it you probably shouldn’t be doing it.” Nardole was about to lay into him a little more when Missy stopped in front. Her hands went to her hips as she stared down at something on the forest floor. When they joined her, Nardole saw the object of her disdain. “Oh dear...”

The Master was spread eagled on the pine needles, covered in dried mud with a stupid grin on his face and droplets of water running across his forehed.

“Get. Up.” Missy’s voice was laced with frost – her eyes steel.

“Why bother?”

“So I can smack you back to the ground!”

“Goodness, aren’t we in a fine mood on this lovely morning… What happened – wake up on the wrong side of the bed, did we?”

“You could say that.”

“Oh dear – come on – off the ground...” Nardole muttered, stumbling over the slight rise and down to the weird nest-like area the Master had found for himself. He and the Doctor both took an arm each and hauled the Master back onto his feet. They hovered there for a moment, not sure if the Master was going to stay upright but he managed it.

At which point Missy whacked him _really hard_ with her umbrella, sending him right back into the leaf litter with a _grunt_. Nardole and the Doctor jumped in shock and dived down to fetch the Master again.

“Don’t hit me with your umbrella!” The Master complained, as he was righted, hands dusting him off. “It’s _degrading_.” He seemed more upset about how it looked rather than how it felt but then there was half a league of wine in his veins. Maybe he couldn’t feel anything at all.

“But – what were you doing out here?” The Doctor asked, perplexed. His eyebrows had gone all wrong with near impossible angles tilting them to the side.

Nardole was picking bits of leaf from the Master’s jacket. Missy beat him to a reply. “He was searching for the service hatches – weren’t you?” Missy waited for the Master to give her a curt nod. “Yeah – I’m not blind like these idiots.” She waved her hand in the general direction of the Doctor and Nardole. “I’m about two days ahead of you.”

“So – where are they then?” The Master prompted.

“Melted… There was a great big fire here a long time ago. The Black Hole is destroying the exoskeleton of the ship. Every now and then bits fall off – bits catch fire – bits fly off into space. Part of the roof caved in – or didn’t any of you notice?” Missy pointed up through the trees and they all followed, tilting their heads. There was a slightly darker patch of blue to the left of the number on the ceiling. “Hit the floor,” she continued, gesturing at the ground beneath their feet, “turned everything into one great big furnace. No more service hatch.”

The Master’s face was all lines and confusion. “How on  _earth_ do you know that, Missy?” He liked to think of himself as pretty darn smart – certainly smarter than the Doctor who hadn’t even  _noticed_ the pools of mist gathering at the base of the forest where the service ducts were meant to be. That tiny crack in the sky though? What was Missy – an astronomer by night? It was infuriating!

“I read it in a book.” She snapped back at him. “If there was a way off this bloody level I’d have taken it already. I’m not playing hard to get with plot points – we’re _actually, properly trapped._ So stop wasting time ambling about in fields like a drunken goat herder and try helping.”

With that, Missy turned heel on all of them and headed back to the farm house.

Nardole, the Doctor and the Master eyed each other.

“Am I always like that?” Asked the Master.

“Yeah, mostly.” Replied the Doctor.

“Worse...” Nardole insisted.


	12. Chapter 12

“Isn’t there somewhere else you could go to lick your wounds?” asked Nardole, as the Master perched on the step beside, rubbing his chest. It appeared he’d taken Missy’s firm instruction to heart and decided to ‘help out’. At the present this involved annoying Nardole at the front of the farmhouse when he’d much rather be left in peace.

“She’s unhinged.” The Master complained, worrying the bruise on his sternum. “Properly mental. I mean – I’m not sane, I’d never go as far as to claim that but she… She’s waltzing to a different tempo, you know? Singing in the wrong key.”

“You sound dazed with melancholic love.” Frankly, whatever was going on between all of them was giving him a headache. “Are all Time Lords like this or is it just _you two_ – or three. Is it two or three? Uh. Whatever. ” Nardole muttered, tapping away at his laptop. He was warring with the ship’s encryption system, trying to bypass the security so and gain access to the schematics. It wasn’t impossible but it was certainly taking longer than he was comfortable with. Their schedule for survival was getting shorter by the minute.

The Master eyed the field in front of the house. The vista was  almost serene with slightly rolled hills and  a  dark green forest  butting up to the farm.  _Almost_ because the sagging bodies of Cybermen mounted on stakes in the middle of the  grass ruined  it with  a touch of  savagery.  He really  _really_ hated those things. They kept him awake at night – all willowy shadows under the moonlight.

“Any day now...” Nardole sighed at the screen. “Hazran says that these Cyber-incursions last longer each time and that the creatures fight harder. They won’t say but everyone knows that this is a fight they’re going to lose very soon.” It’s why they had the children stashed away inside the main house. _A slaughter house_. That’s all it was. A future crypt.

“By the way,” the Master added, leaning awkwardly over Nardole’s shoulder, “you’d get a lot further if you used the Arkanian numeric system to crack the firewall.”

Nardole narrowed his eyes  while the pom-pom on his beanie bobbed in the wind.  “Why is that now?”

“Because the Mondasian’s nicked the whole getup a while back and fed it through their core programming during the fourth golden age. Copy – paste. Hey presto. Instant upgrade.”

“Learn that slumming around the lower decks, did you?” It may have rolled off his tongue with ire but even Nardole had to admit that the Master was probably telling the truth. Nardole chewed his lip, annoyed. “My Arkanian is a tad on the rusty side.”

“Give it here.” The Master snatched the laptop off him. He may not like – or even recognise Nardole as a sentient creature but the Master _loved_ a good puzzle. Breaking into a software system counted as light entertainment for the afternoon.

Nardole was uneasy.  Missy had a way of edging  into control and the Master was no different .  That said, he honestly wasn’t sure if it mattered at  this point.  It would be tough to make their situation any worse...  Besides,  Nardole believed Missy  when she’ d said that they were trapped. Every day they spent here Nardole felt that twitch in his neck  grow worse – the  patch of flesh that remembered being separated from the rest of his body  and lived in fear of history repeating.

S trange. When he’d become a cyborg there had been as assumption of ‘near immortality’ embedded in his mind. He was both dead and alive simultaneously. It had simply never occurred to him that all that might end at the mouth of a Black Hole. He almost  _hoped_ the Cybermen opted to kill him because the last fate Nardole wanted to imagine was the endless fall toward the abyss – circling  around the universe’s drain.

“Do you have to worry so loudly?” Muttered the Master, typing away.

“I – what?”

“I can _hear_ you...” He explained. “Time Lords – _well –_ some of us are telepathic. Right now you’re imagining how it would feel to be dismantled atom by atom by that great big sodding hole in the sky – spending _eternity_ falling into a point. Torment stretched to  infinity. Well – please _don’t_. It’s distracting.”

Nardole was horrified.  He’d been – he’d been  _violated_ ...

“She didn’t tell you, I take it? No. I guess a woman has to have secrets. Got to guard your thoughts around us if you want to keep them private.” He looked up with his big, round face and matching eyes. “You never know when someone might be looking.”

“C-can the Doctor? You know – do that...”

The Master laughed deeply – a real cruel, throaty gurgle  better suited to one of his earlier incarnations . “ I’ve heard he can speak to doors – or so he says… Not quite the same thing, is it? Ah...” He was  diverted by Hazran setting a tray of tea and biscuits beside them. “The girlfriend?”

“No, she most definitely is not.” Nardole hissed under his breath. A dark flicker crossed Hazran’s eyes at his flat dismissal. “Ignore him.” Nardole covered quickly, meeting Hazran’s disappointment. His words didn’t soften her at all yet he couldn’t figure out why and kept trying with, “He says all kinds of things. Most of it pure nonsense.”

“Actually, _that one_ speaks the truth most often.” Hazran had a point.  The Master didn’t care enough to lie. “Tea?” She offered it to him first – forcing herself to be kind. The unsolicited manner confused the Master more than anything but he wanted tea so he took the offered cup. “I was wondering,” she continued, presenting Nardole with tea as well, “should I bring more blankets to the creature in the barn? I’ve not gone daft, if that’s what you’re thinking. I know it’s made of metal but I thought – maybe – I don’t know what I thought but should I?”

“You’ve not gone daft.” Nardole cupped his tea. “ _Bill_ hasn’t woken up since the last time but if she does, yes, blankets would be lovely.”

Hazran sat  herself down on the step, shuffling in between Nardole and the Master,  knocking them both with her shoulders . “Answer me this,” she added, “is this, ‘Bill’ going to be dangerous when she wakes up? I’ve got a house full of children to think of. I know it – she – was your friend but that’s one of  _them_ in there. If there’s any chance she’ll wake up fighting I need to know.”

_Usually they wake up screaming,_ thought the Master quietly.  “Of  _course_ it’s possible...”

“Don’t help!” Nardole hissed at him. “It’s unlikely,” he added, to Hazran.

Hazran eyed the Master. She didn’t want pretty lies – they were so far beyond that. This entire world was a beautiful falsity. What good would it do them now? Even children had to face reality when it came scratching at the door with gnashing teeth and stinking breath. “Possible…?”

“I’ve seen it.” The Master clunked away at the keys. “Many times. When those machines come out of surgery they wake up, plug into the matrix and off they go. Fresh Cyberman. Baldy over there is clutching onto the hope that being on this level, away from the Cyber-network, might stop the tech from taking full control of the human mind trapped within. He might even have a point.”

“The Doctor said-”

“Oh, _‘the Doctor said’_...” The Master mocked  Nardole mercilessly. “The Doctor says a lot of things when he doesn’t want to face the storm. He’d let you walk off a cliff thinking it was a glass ceiling to stop you wailing. You want my advice?” Hazran listened intently. The Master tore his focus away from the screen to settle his blue eyes on hers. “Keep a shotgun or two trained on the barn if you value the lives of your children and spare a bullet for me because I might just throw a couple of them into the fire to watch the smoke thicken.”

Hazran shrank away from him. She could see straight to the heart of that horrific soul. Even if he meant the threat, which she doubted, the Master only said it because he was so desperate to lance his pain – as if by shifting fear into other creatures it lessoned his own. The other one wasn’t like that. Missy bundled it up – wove it through her eyes and bit down hard. Hazran couldn’t decide which option was more destructive. They _both_ made her sad.

I n a gesture that appeared odd to both men, Hazran reached across and set her hand on the Master’s arm. She left it there for a moment, squeezing gently in comfort before she stood up and vanished inside the house.

“What was _that_ about?” Asked Nardole, perplexed.

The Master was even more so. “How should I know. Your pet – not mine.”

* ~*~*

T he ladder lay against the right hand wall  with its edges nestled between the books and its feet grounded on the scuffed floorboards. Its diagonal strip of half-eaten wood cut through the light, splaying it into an array of graded bands highlighted by plumes of dust that erupted each time Missy dragged one of the books free. She held  a victim in her paws, peeling its cover open. The pages  inside were withered, sticking to each other like layers of tissue. Ink, once black now sagged into lazy shades of brown  as if it were blood from a past kill.

At the front of the library, the Doctor busied himself hauling open the enormous floor to ceiling curtains. He used a rod  to hook into the rope bindings  and then pulling back for all he was worth to shed another gasp of light on the room.  His victory came with a wash of dust and cobwebs which spiralled in the air around him like ash, catching in his hair.

“I thought you said you were going to help Nardole with the defence system?” The Doctor walked around a pile of books that had recently collapsed onto the floor – knocked carelessly. He squared off against the final window and its bank of curtains. These ones, he guessed, had never been opened. Their embroidered star patterns held colour in their thread whereas all the rest had faded away into nothing.

Missy split the pages apart delicately with one of her nails and, with a great amount of reverence, turned to the next chapter. “Darling, that’s what I’m doing.” At this point, the Doctor was hidden  from her view by the centre panel of shelves. The only proof of his existence was the top of the curtain shimmering like a mirage and a lot of ‘hmpth-ing’ as he wrestled with something. He’d never see the moment of fondness cross her features as she thought of him struggling away. “I’m saving us time.”

“That – doesn’t-” the Doctor’s speech was interrupted by miscellaneous sounds of struggle, “-make any – sense at-” a shifting of the curtain – a thin crack of light between its lips, “-all _oh shit!_ ”

M issy watched the curtain tear  and strip from its metal loops into a death spiral – like billowing smoke sucked back into the earth. Vengeful light streamed in  as the room was  finally lit by both  of its towering windows  _and seemed the smaller for it._ Where once the library lied with its shadows now it had been revealed as a simple room crowded with shelves and chairs – a few rotting pieces of machinery and a cracked fireplace whose flames cowered before the daylight.

“Any casualties?” Missy asked, with no intention of leaving her perch high up on the ladder.

There was a ruffle of material in reply. A scuffle and clatter of books. Eventually the Doctor emerged, untangling the curtain from his shoe.  He paused when he saw her at the top of the ladder –  left hand on the wall of books and the other holding one to her chest. Her hair was down, lapping around her shoulders in gentle waves as she’d not bothered to curl it. It seemed, impossibly, that the older she got the  _younger_ she looked, as if she were returning to that point when they’d first diverged from friendship.  Right now it was particularly clear. Her eyes picked through the light – shining like the surface of the sea  in shallow water with white sand below the waves.  He had to drag himself back out of them.

“Not today.” The Doctor finally replied. “Is that better?”

Her reply was a smile and licking of her fingers.  She flipped another page.

The Doctor was left to wander around the library. It was a ratty creation. If it ever had ‘glory days’ they belonged to centuries past. He poked strange items, liberated a few books from the ground which he walked with for a while and then deposited in new places. He lingered beneath a torn lamp shade and pressed his head against one of the walls, listening to the scratch of a rat trapped behind. _Always rats. Every ship on ocean, time or space._ Eventually he returned to the fireplace and let the heat warm the back of his trousers until the fabric was almost too hot. He enjoyed the crackle of the wood and the scent of charcoal.

M issy stretched out, placing the book back in its place before reaching for another. “ Utter chaos...” She muttered irritably, at the ordering of the books.  She  climbed higher.

“ D éj à  vécu .. .”

She tugged  another volume free and centred herself on the ladder, gripping the frame sharply when she felt it slip beneath. “Nope...” Missy corrected the Doctor. “That’s French for -”

“I know what it means.” He stopped her. The Doctor padded over to the chair and took a seat. “I mean you – _this_...” The Doctor lifted both hands, his palms  faced to their audience of books.

M issy’s heart quickened. She turned the large, red cover over in her hands as a distraction.

“Only the light was different,” he continued, looking toward the great pillars of white with flashes of green whenever the trees outside grazed across the glass. “It was always amber at that hour of the day – after the noise and rush of people drained away.” The Doctor watched Missy carefully. She’d paused, fidgeting with the book as she looked anywhere except him. _She remembered every breath of Gallifrey._ “You used to sit by the window and wait for me, tucked into that ridiculous alcove – pressed between the books and the glass.  And then-”

Missy  took the book to her chest, clutching it against hear hearts as she  twisted around to the Doctor. “We were foolish children who believed in  romantic notions – like humans and their gods.”  Desperately, she tried to keep the memories buried.  _A brush of lips. Hands against the window. Racing hearts and a head turning to the side with a sharp moan._ “ They are gone, Theta. We can never have those days back.”

“I still believe in you _Koschei_...”  Her name was a whisper. He was not as free with it as she was with his. Every time it parted from his lips, Missy thought she might lose her grip on the ladder.

His gaze  sliced through the distance between them. She felt it, unblinking, tearing away the walls around her mind.  Those memories roared all the louder. Missy tilted forward and  laid her head against the books helf,  seeking a reprieve . Her eyes closed. This – right here – was why she stayed away  from him for vast chasms of time. The Doctor could  _see her_ and that was frightening.

“A thousand years…” Eventually Missy lifted her head and shifted on the ladder, facing him once more. She was high above yet he towered over her in this moment. “I often wonder if you really understood what you promised that afternoon by the water… Did you _grasp_ the cont ract you locked us into? Doctor... You bound us together under sacred laws without asking if _anyone_ could survive a thousand years together.” His face remained unreadable. To Missy he was stone. A brooding statue. “Not even Time Lords pair off for that long. They cycle through each other like seasons, living lives afresh. What are we? We’re – we’re _stuck_.”

They had never been able to get past each other.  Even before the vault.

It took the Doctor a while to find his reply . “You and I have always been different. Everyone knows that. Why do you think they tried so hard to keep us apart?”

Missy all but rolled her eyes. “They were tired of us getting into strife-”

“-we’re a _pair_.” He cut her off. “All or nothing, Missy, that’s all it’s ever been for us. We’ve tried ‘nothing’ –  it doesn’t work.  Nothing is a _loop_ of  violence and tears.”

“So your solution was to – what? Lock me away until I changed my world view sufficient to pass your cute little morality test?” Bitterness crept into her words. “Did you enjoy drawing the tears out? Are you happy now that you know I feel everything as keenly as you?”

“You feel _more_ than me, Missy. That was always your problem.”

She bucked at the truth because it _was true._ Missy only had to fashion a glance at the Master strutting  around the farmhouse to see it. He was a creature awash with emotion. It bubbled and festered straight through his sanity. She’d hesitate to call it a ‘problem’ though. Empathy – that was part of being alive. “Sometimes you don’t feel _enough_...” Missy hissed darkly.

He wasn’t angry with her. Bill had given him quite the dressing down when she’d learned the truth about Missy. Evil or not – trapping her in a glass box like some kind of scientific specimen for study wasn’t  only sadistic it was borderline psychotic ,  made worse, of course, by  the creeping realisation that part of this was about finally having her back in his life.

Yeah. That was about the point  in the conversation Bill  had taken a swipe at him. One day, Missy would do the same.  Maybe the Master would do it for her.

M issy very carefully shuffled herself on the ladder, squeezing between the  strips of wood until she was sitting on the top run g – the red book in her lap. The physical distance between them helped. She felt safe up there among the rafters.  It was like being in a cage. “I saw you first – did I ever tell you?”

The Doctor was caught genuinely off guard.  A cornerstone in his mind suddenly  _shifted_ .

“Mmm… Yes there was a gathering two weeks before term began at the academy. Do you remember? They held it on the cliffs behind the city. Night fell. The stars swarmed into the sky and the white table cloths flapped in the frigid mountain air. Our parents and elder siblings squabbled in the glow of the city below but you escaped and sat on the edge of the cliff – right in the dirt. I saw you there and thought _he looks how I feel_. You were my echo. Then and now. You are what I _want_ to be, not what I am.”

A tear he hadn’t meant to cry slipped free and dropped over his cheek.  _This is too raw_ , he thought,  _this will rip them apart._

“You sat there all night...” Missy breathed, picturing it. “And you sit there now,” she nodded at him, folded into the chair. “Was it the stars you saw, Doctor, or were you looking at something else?”

“The gaps between the stars...” He replied. “The same thing I’m looking at now.”

Missy’s fingers dug into the cover of the book.  A fleeting point of fancy pushed a smile onto her lips. “That pet of yours – she thought we were married. Why didn’t we?” She asked, genuinely.  It was a simple question and once, long ago, she was sure it had a simple answer.

The Doctor did not share her smile. His emotions had ventured into deeper waters.  He was terrified of what he might say in this moment but if this was the end, perhaps these things should be said. Someone had taught him that a long time ago. “Our pact was stronger.”

Missy found herself unable to look away.

“Do you know how many stars there are?”

She nodded. They’d been taught that on their first day.  Every Gallifreyan knew.

“Even if we saw one every single second of our lives it would takes us _billions_ of years to  visit them all,” he continued. “By then, there’d be a billion more born into the sky. That’s how long I pledged to travel with you, Missy. Don’t you understand?”

With shaking hands, Missy opened the book in her lap. She could barely manage to turn the pages as the Doctor’s words ripped through her. They could never be unsaid.

The Doctor watched her. Missy had not said a word since his admission. All she did was fuss with the book in her hands, flicking through it one page at a time. He’d shown her his cards – brandished his heart with no safety net to fall back into. Usually, he could read the silence when it swelled between them but her manner was unusual.  Tears or rage – he was used to that but Missy seemed to be out of tears.

H e  _wasn’t._ Another  one crept from his eye and slowly grew until a lash blinked it away. The Doctor didn’t even know  _why_ he was crying.  They built and buil t , tracking  glistening  lines across his pale face until a sob stuck in his throat and his shoulders heaved.  He leaned forward onto one arm, resting his face in his palm.  R ivers  crossed the lines, slipping down his wrist. They wouldn’t stop.

Missy watched – the book open in her lap and her finger resting beneath a line of text.

“ _Is this the Autumn then, of our good lives?”_ Missy read from the faded ink. Someone else had cried these words. She could feel their sorrow. She waited until the Doctor lifted his eyes to her, heavy and wet. _“Do these immortal faces mock our dying cries? Steel for bone. Vacant, empty and alone. Storms waged in silence. Anonymous violence. And then to death the black eye calls. Too soon the ground and sky to death – falls._ ” She folded the corner of the page down to mark it then closed the cover. “One last star...” This was the only one they’d have and it was a brute of a thing.

She tossed the book cruelly into the air. It flew – pages ruffling in the wind and landed – face to floor, with a piercing  _crash_ that broke its spine.

“The engineer was a poet,” Missy finished. “The access code for the firewall is on that page. Take it to Nardole.”

How could she shift from reverence to murder? He sat, a wreck and she distilled to calm – feeding from the hopelessness of their fate. Maybe it was because she and Death were lovers.

The Doctor stood and crossed the floor. He knelt beside the book and scooped its corpse into his hands. Her marked page fell open. She was right, of course, the code screamed out – left there by a ghost. “Come down from the ladder...”  he begged , tilting his head up to Missy. “You can give this to Nardole yourself.”

She refused.

*~*~*

T he Master jolted sharply as a book slammed into the step. He and Nardole looked up in unison, eyeing the Doctor. He was all grey eyes and long lines today.

“You dropped something...” The Master dead panned, ignoring the book.

The Doctor pointed vaguely in the direction of  it and mumbled, “Password for the thingy.”

“I beg your pardon?” The Master frowned, shifting his gaze between the book and the Doctor. “Have you been _crying_?”

Nardole tensed.  _Yes he had_ and  _no, this wasn’t good._ “Let me see that...” He reached over, rescuing the book. He flicked to the marked page and gawped. “ Oy – he’s got a point.” Nardole shoved it in front of the Master. A few keystrokes later and the laptop chimed as the firewall disengaged.

“How the heck did you work that out, Doctor?” The Master asked, proper astonishment all over his stupid face. He tiled his head backwards, looking up at him with a brief moment of awe.

“Actually _you_ worked it out.” He replied and then he sauntered down the steps and across the grass where he picked his way around the scarecrows.

“He’s an odd sort, that one,” Nardole complained, as he shuffled closer to the Master to get a better look at the screen. “You’d think he’d be happy but he’s going to go off and sulk – you watch. He can maintain that for _days_. I should know. I lived with him.”

“Can you please just _stop_ talking rubbish or I’ll twist your head off and give it to the kids.”

“My – my. Isn’t everyone in a fine mood today.”

“Well it’s got nothing to do with me. On balance, considering I woke up in a field, I’d say I’m pleasant company in comparison.”

Nardole just  _stared._ “Not two seconds ago you threatened to tear my head off.”


	13. Chapter 13

A bright glow leached under the library door. Hazran, arms full of blankets, paused and stared curiously. It was the middle of the day. The fields were full of children and farmers while the house sat empty. Its fires whittled into smouldering coals  and the glass chambers of the oil lamps brimmed afresh, waiting for the night.

S he pressed on the handle with her elbow and laid her weight against the door. It opened, showering her in a veil of light that stunned her pupils into tight points. As they relaxed, she saw that the library windows were free of their curtains and the world beyond shone through them. It was beautiful. This forgotten place had been found again in the twilight of its life.

A creak came from above. Hazran looked to her right along the wall of books and saw the Time Lord nestled high up at the top of a ladder.

“You be careful up there,” Hazran began, stepping into the room, “that ladder’s seen better days.” Actually, she had no idea how breakable ‘Time Lords’ were. Maybe it didn’t matter if they fell off a few ladders from time to time. Missy certainly didn’t seem to be worried about the height or constant _groaning_ coming from the shelf behind where its aging structure struggled to cope with the added pressure.

M issy had been staring toward the window and had to shift her gaze when the annoying human blundered into the library. “Scurry off now – there’s a good carbon  mound .”

Hazran set the blankets on the floor. “I was on my way to the barn with these. The Doctor thinks the c y - _Bill_ might wake up soon.”

Missy snorted – and not just because of the ridiculous concept of taking blankets for a Cyberman. “He’ d be wrong about that. Trust me dear, I  _know_ Cyber tech. One of my ‘things’.” To her great annoyance, the human seemed to be moving closer, coming to stand at the base of the ladder  with a curious look . “Bit of a hobby of mine.”

“Is this your fault?”

_Well it certainly had balls_ . Usually people got their limbs torn off with such brazen remarks but Missy had no inclination to come down from her perch, not even for a bit of casual murder. “Complicated question. I certainly didn’t fly your pretty little ship into the jaws of a black hole so ultimately, you might want to level the blame at the navigation officers.  They’ve got about as much sense as Frederick Fleet. Big hole in the sky. Dead ahead. Munching up stars and you lot flew straight into it.  Cue the quartet. ”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know that’s not what you meant.” Missy snapped.

T he silence that followed signalled the end to that line of questioning. “ I was serious about the ladder,” Hazran picked up the threads of civility between them. “Old George, he went tumbling off it just last year. It’s got a bad frame. That’s why we left it in here.”

“If something’s run out of use, you should burn it.” Missy plucked another book from the shelf. Their weight in her hand soothed her. “Broken things can be dangerous.”

“You don’t fool me with your clever analogies.” Hazran folded her arms across her chest. “I’ve raised three dozen children in my time and I’ve heard every story there is all dressed up with enough colour and sound even a Time Lord could marvel. Beneath all of that, the truth is disappointingly common.”

A  pure moment of wickedness surfaced in Missy’s eyes. Her darkness was alive and well – tempered, yes but far from dead.  If this human wasn’t careful, she’d wake it entirely.  There was very little difference between play and sport for a lion.

“Do not presume to understand me,” Missy warned. “The moment you do will be the hour you go into the ground.”

“That’s the _second_ time you’ve threatened murder today.” She believed it even less from her lips.

“We must be on a roll.”

* ~*~*

Admittedly, the Doctor could see the appeal of the woods. Once you were under the protection of the canopy the eerie  _hiss_ of the air filters was replaced by the rustle of pine needles, rubbing against each other as the tall trunks bowed in the wind.  He stopped and dipped his head back. They tapered toward the sky around him – swaying like grass and he, an ant.

T he tears came and went, racing each other down his cheek and gathering on the lapels of his tattered coat. When they dried it was a cool gasp against his skin.

He remembered that night on Gallifrey. It had been the first clear evening after months of  dry storms stirring red dirt up from the wandering dunes beyond. The winds settled. The sky calmed into dusk. The thunder banished itself beyond the curve of the planet leaving a sweep of stars  and distant shudder vibrating in the bedrock. He’d felt it, sitting on the cusp.

G allifrey had lived too long. The Doctor heard the slowing currents of its molten core, barely able to stir a tremor in the mountain range. They were old peaks – standing against the scratch of time but losing a little more of themselves each year. One day they’d be like the sands, washing across the surfaces in a tide that never ceased.

It was in the dirt against his hands. A dying wail that no one could hear but him. What was the sand but bloodied tears and the stars a  witness to the kil l?

He reached out to touch one of the trees. There were whispers in the wood but these trees had never seen a real sky. It made them cold and unreachable – alien.  Missy was right, of course. As soon as she’d mentioned the fire he could see evidence of it littered all around him. There were pieces of crumpled metal – warped and folded into manic creations mixed in with the rocks. They glinted like blades. He knelt down to one of them and brushed away the moss and dirt. It was sharp and left an angry slice in his flesh. The Doctor startled at the blood between this fingers and shook it off. A flicker of gold erupted from the gash. He hissed and rocked back onto the ground – diving into his suit for a handkerchief which he wrapped around the wound. He didn’t like being fragile. It was most inconvenient.

T he ruined forest floor was not a perfect disaster. Like cooled lava there were occasional gaps where he could see into the service tunnels below. They were probably in a right state. If he could see into them then the rain could pour down and flood the electronics. It was a miracle anything on this floor still worked.

Actually, the clouds were already gathering again.  _Maybe it was broken_ , he thought. The forest was drowning and the crops had started to die in the sodden dirt. If the Cybermen didn’t win then the ship might kill them on its own.

*~*~*

_Success_ was generous  as a notion . Missy was only halfway down the ladder. With every run g Hazran managed to inch out of her, the Time Lord’s eyes deepened. They were closer to creatures than humans. The outer ‘human-like’ shell was just that – a façade that they could change on a whim to suit. Each change purchased with death. She wondered how many faces there had been and if they all had the same, cold eyes. Maybe, once, a long time ago – those eyes had been born  _kind_ .

“What about tea?” Hazran changed tact. “The other you likes it so I know you must as well.”

“You should take care with him,” Missy warned, shuffling down another step. She was closer to the floor than the ceiling now. “He’s been cooped up for a few hundred years. Like a rabid dog, I bet he’s looking for something to chew.”

“And you’ve been in a cage,” Hazran countered. “Nardole told me.”

“He’ll regret that.” She promised.

“There’s a line for him and I was _first_.”

Missy grinned. Vengeful spirits were her favourite. “All right. Tea. I used to host excellent tea parties. I find it’s the best way to break awkward news.” She rather liked staring across the table at all those recently dead souls. A bit of sugar. A dash of milk. They accepted their fate without all those messy screams.

Another few steps and then the floor.

“What have you got there?” Hazran nodded at the book Missy seemed keen on stealing. She could use it for firewood for all the good it’d do now.

“Nothing. Another pointless little life tucked in between two sheets of cardboard.” The Doctor heard stories in the trees and when those trees became books, Missy heard them too.

“I never read the books.” Hazran realised.

“You’re not alone. Humans – no matter what planet they hail from, have never been big on history. You were born on a ship and you will die on a ship. What good are these miserable tales to you?” Missy though, she intended to salvage one story from the fire. Her TARDIS was full of keepsakes. Where the Doctor had a library she had a vault. It was lined with relics from dead worlds. Some of which, she’d burned...

* ~*~*

T he Doctor walked deeper. This part of the forest had a tangle of vines over the floor and a few sprays of white flowers that looked like snow among the green.  The recent rain funnelled between the rock and ruined floor, forming a dark grey river. He paused at its edge, mesmerised by the current.

“When did this weird nature kick of yours start, then?” The Master strolled out of the wild mess of forest. He seemed to touch every tree, clawing through the world like a spider in a web.

The Doctor took a step back from the narrow stream. They were on opposing sides of it and right now it felt like a chasm rather than trickle of water.

“Since always….” He replied. “You know that.” It was odd, looking at the Master now after what Missy had told him. Those shared pasts held no guarantee of safety. _He wants to kill you._ He remembered that too. He could _see it_ , quite plainly.

“It’s lovely – catching up with myself.” The Master stopped when he reached the edge of the stream. He leaned forward, strung between two solid trunks – one of them leaning to the side.

“You really should keep away from each other,” replied the Doctor, kneeling down to wash the dirt from his hands. The water was freezing. “Intersecting time lines have always been a dangerous thing.”

“There were five of you once...” The Master nodded, remembering the event quite clearly. “Several of you left me to _die_ when all I wanted to do was help so _yes_ , I know all about this sort of thing. How do you think I’m handling it? Had a bit of fun in the beginning, didn’t we?” He thought back fondly to the rooftop. Oh, he’d felt so _alive_ with the world burning at his feet and the Doctor watching the ashes  gather in the wind. “I don’t think you’re worried about paradoxes or time streams,” he continued, watching the Doctor straighten up and wipe his hands on his jacket. “What you’re worried about is Missy. What if she comes around to my way of thinking? I can be _very_ persuasive.”

T he pit of the Doctor’s stomach churned. When the two of them were together – past and present – he felt all control he had over the situation slide right through his fingertips. They were a force unto themselves.

“Mmm...” The Master watched the Doctor carefully. He loved _this_. “What if it’s worse than that, dear Doctor...” He continued, letting his hands slide over the rough bark. He descended, stepping towards the water and then straight into the heart of the stream. It was shallow, barely making it over the edge of his boots. He stayed there. Forcing the water to bend around him. “What if she’s been playing you _all these years_? Are you really so arrogant to imagine that because she flashes you a smile from time to time that she’s _yours_?”

H e considered that possibility all the time. It haunted his nightmares. Every day he opened the vault there was a chance that he’d find her there, knife in hand, ready to end their pledge. He’d imagined a thousand reasons why she’d agreed and not all of them were good. “I trust you,” he settled on. “I’ll always trust you.”

Two more steps and the Master was out of the river and in front of the Doctor. “Then you are a  _fool_ .”

His shoulders were  jerked back sharply as the Master walked him into a tree. The Doctor allowed it, breathing steady as the other Time Lord pushed up against the bark until it hurt. His suit crumpled inside the Master’s fists. “ If you think physically overpowering me will help validate your point you’ve learned very little.”  The Doctor replied, calmly.

“I don’t know – it works on her.”

Barely veiled fury crossed the Doctor’s eyes. Missy would never divulge anything that happened when she was alone with the Master and he was starting to worry about  _why_ .  Did he hurt her – or was it something worse…  He had a feeling he already knew the answer to that.

“I never said it didn’t work on you.” With that, the Doctor reached up, took hold of the Master’s jacket and turned them both around until they’d traded places and it was _his_ head slamming into the tree. The Master lost his grip and had to fumble for the Doctor’s arms – trying to push him off but ultimately this face was old and stron g. “You respond to physical cues. Missy _reasons_. That’s why I know you’ll never get through to her. You lack the finesse.”

“Finesse?” The Master all but spat. “Is that what we were doing before in the cellar? Thought not...” He added, as the Doctor paled. “Do you know what bothers me the most? It’s all such bullshit. Turning me good. Saving me. Re-aligning my morality so what – you can have a travel buddy? That’s not what you want… That’s what you _want_ to want. We both see straight through you and that’s why it’ll never work.”

“If it’s not working then why did she stick around?”

T he Doctor’s hips snapped forward without warning or permission. His body arched toward the Master, whose hand had reached down, palm to crotch,  stroking the Doctor through his pants . It was ruthless but effective.

“ _That_ reason,” the Master answered.

They held the moment – eyes sharp and breath short. There was nothing to say and the Doctor couldn’t stop his cock from hardening against the Master’s touch. They were in each other’s heads too often and the waters beneath were murky as fuck.  It was all a mess of  bitter lechery.

Once again, it was the Doctor who leaned in – tempted by a rush of passion but the Master headed him off, turning his head to the side. Cold.

The Doctor stumbled backwards, putting a safe distance between them. “You’re insane.  _This_ is insane.” He fidgeted with his coat trying to ignore the pounding of his hearts.

“Exactly...” The Master pushed himself off the tree. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell Missy. We don’t work, Doctor.” He continued. “We may want to fuck the stars from the sky but we’ve been around that block before and the only thing at the end of it is the abyss. Where are you going?” He added, as the Doctor turned and made his way back through the forest. He wasn’t done with him yet.

“Anywhere but here.”

*~*~*

I t was like taking tea with the devil. Missy was all manners and ceremony, sitting opposite Hazran on a small table by the window. The cup was chipped and the saucer mismatched but the tea steamed pleasantly and of all the terrors going on in this ship, a cup of tea was nothing to complain about.

“You keep looking at the forest. Did you see something?”

Missy closed her eyes. What she saw was not in front of her. It was a memory. Blurred at the edges. Whatever it was, it was happening now. The Master was writing something fresh and it was besieging her mind with a splitting headache.

“Time is not always set,” she tried to explain to the human. “There’s a bit of wriggle room between fixed events. When the Master does something different I see it. A little bit. _I feel it_.”  Missy touched the back of her head. “He’s a stupid little shit.” She added. “One of these days he’s going to do something that I can’t fix.”

“Like Bill.”

Her head ached again and another flash tore through her vision.  _The Doctor – wide eyed, shoved roughly. Jeering and muted insults she couldn’t make out._ “I think it’s killing me.”

Hazran poured more tea. “Did  the Doctor really lock you in a room for seventy years?”

“Longer, I think. We both lost count and wouldn’t admit it. It wasn’t a room more – let’s call it a ‘magic box’.”

“I don’t understand how that helps… How can you learn anything if you’re removed from everything?”

Missy had definitely had this conversation with the Doctor once before – she’d been trying to bargain for a walk in the university park but he’d chickened out. Quite right, too. At the time her intentions weren’t exactly honourable. “Cold turkey from being evil...” She copied the Doctor’s words. “The idea was that if I was isolated I literally couldn’t do anything morally questionable. By taking a break from my ‘bad choices’ he thought I’d kick the habit.”

“Did you?”

Missy shrugged. “This was my first trip out. We’ll see...”

That was – alarming…  Surely it would have been safer to take her for that walk before letting her loose on an entire spaceship? Hazran was about to speak when Missy dropped the teacup. It hit the table and threw a curtain of tea over Missy, who was holding her head in both hands. Hazran was on her feet at once, moving over to her but the Time Lord pushed her away.

“No – no don’t touch me.” Missy insisted, retreating.

M issy left the room and, with skirts dripping, climbed the stairs to the next level. She braved the hallway, one hand on the wall, until she reached her room and all but fell inside. Missy didn’t make it as far as the bed. Instead, she crumpled onto the floor, one hand over her stomach and the other at her lips.  _The fucking bastard…_ She thought, anger rising in her chest. He was going to ruin everything.

It was happening now. In the distant edges of her memory. Missy  _knew_ what the Doctor tasted like – as if he  was on her lips, spilling with a growl of unadulterated ecstasy.  In the darkness of her room she toppled forward with a moan.  _How dare he._ Her past was unravelling her future and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.

As the memory passed, Missy reached forward, one hand on the floor. The headache abated as her fury grew. It was time her and junior had a little chat about boundaries and the sanctity of the time stream.

_Another shudder of pleasure ripped through her, knocking her focus._ Missy steadied herself. She wasn’t an idiot like those two. This was all going to end in a tragedy they’d never come back from if she didn’t put a stop to it herself.

* ~*~*

Nothing was said. They walked through the wood in silence accompanied by the sound of a passing shower. It fell around them, heavy drops soaking  their clothes . The Doctor remembered exactly when it had started. The Master had yanked his head back,  a fierce  hand in the Doctor’s long, silver hair. As the Doctor felt his control sliding into oblivion the first drop of rain hit his face in place of a tear.

He wasn’t sure if  _this_ was honest or just another one of their games. With Missy he felt the edges of his heart collapsing but with the Time Lord strolling through the rain next to him? It was more like the fabric of the universe unravelling. Possibly something to avoid.

The Master lofted his eyebrow as the Doctor headed towards the barn. He’d already explained  _at length_ the technical reasons why the Cyber-thing wouldn’t wake up for a while but that didn’t stop the sentimental old fool from ducking his head in from time to time, stocking up on his daily dose of guilt. Whatever. The Master kept heading for the  farm house.

The workers in the last field braved the rain. A few of them paused as he passed, leaning on their scythes.  The distrust welled up in the air leaving a smile one his lips. He loved commanding fear  even if this was a disappointing audience. He had to get off this bloody ship before he went mad…

“All right?” He nodded at Nardole, who nodded back without looking up from the laptop. The Master continued straight past him and back into the building. He hated everything about this place. The city beneath their feet had been better – not least of all because he could slink back into his TARDIS for a change of clothes and drop of brandy.

He stood at the bottom of the stairs and cast his eyes up.  _She was up there_ . He wondered if this feeling in the back of his throat was  _victory_ .

“Wrong again...” Missy appeared directly behind him.

The Master startled, spinning around to find her right up in his face – eyes threatening and clear.

Missy could smell the Doctor on him. “You’re utterly soaked.” She added, unimpressed by his state. “An absolute mess. I’m embarrassed  _for myself_ .”

He lifted his hands. “Settle down. Just a bit of water. I’ll dry out.”

“Yeah and you’ll look like some half-arsed stray.” Her hand dusted some of the rain off his coat but that only smeared the mud deeper. She rubbed it between her fingers, grimacing.

“So… You probably know what I’m going to ask-”

“-and you know what I’m going to say. Later. I’ll return your damn screwdriver when I’m good and ready.”

“I could just take it from you.”

Missy snickered at his threat. “You could try.”  He tilted forward on his feet but she narrowed her eyes. The nerve… Missy placed her hand squarely on his chest, keeping him at arm’s distance.

“Where are we going?” He asked, as Missy nudged him up the stairs with a very sharp finger prodding into his back. “I mean – I’m flattered but...”

“I have a bath in my room and you are disgracing our reputation. Don’t get any ideas. This comes from some deep well of pity that isn’t at all flattering, I assure you.” And she was still properly furious with him but if she was going to have it out with her younger self it wasn’t going to be with him looking like this.

S he allowed him to collect a pile of fresh clothes from his room and then held the door of hers open as he sidled inside.

“Bit bloody dark, eh?” He said, as Missy hurried to light the string of lanterns around the wall. “No windows. Must feel like home for someone who lives in a vault.”

“Actually, our vault has windows.” Missy closed the bedroom door and laid against it.

“Nice bit of holographic exterior to calm the horrific claustrophobia?”

“Shut up.” She growled.

“Whose idea was the piano?”

“None of your business.”

“We don’t even play.”

“We do now – as you saw. Exceptionally well, actually.”

“Oh, I noticed.” The Master assured her, as he ran his bath and shucked out of his jacket. “I was listening to you play with him sitting next to you. Every keystroke was a token to the years we spent in captivity. The better you played the longer I knew you’d been trapped there with little to do but meander through other people’s songs. You think I’m pathetic? _That_ , Missy, is pathetic.”

“You never say anything nice...” Missy observed, distant.

*~*~*

T he Doctor picked up the small toy that had been left beside Bill. He turned it around in his hands, confused. Had one of the children been in here?

He put it back where he’d found it and set himself down onto a pile of fresh blankets. The Cyberman looked like all the others. The Doctor kept looking for some hint of individuality – a mark that he could latch onto and know that this one – that Bill was different but the harsh reality was that she wasn’t. If he’d found her in the field he’d have walked straight by her, none the wiser.

What could he even say to her? I’m sorry? It sounded pathetic, even in his head. You couldn’t apologise for something like this.  There’d be no justice for it either. When the Doctor sat down and had a good, long look at himself he knew very well that he wouldn’t  reproach the Master. There wasn’t anything further that they could do to each other.

So that left Bill – without hope of redemption, without  vengeance – without humanity.

A row of lights on Bill’s chest flickered, shifting from blue to yellow. He didn’t know what that meant. With no words forming, the Doctor reached across and placed his hand on the cold steel.  The rain pounded on the roof of the barn, threatening to drown them all.

* ~*~*

Missy remained at the door while the Master sloshed about in the water. She’d never realised what a pale, slight creature she was. Sure, her voice was always one of the loudest in the room but physically speaking she could be knocked over by any blundering human.  That revelation explained a lot, actually, like why they’d been so cruel to Lucy. It was amazing what you could see given a bit of distance from yourself.

“Like what you see?” He caught her looking.

Her eyes drifted closed and she allowed herself to slide down the surface of the door into a pool on the floor.  She winced, forgetting about the nasty gash hidden underneath her hair.  Missy reached up and slid her hand between her hair and the wood and withdrew it, feeling a smear of blood. She didn’t need to open her eyes to know that it was there.

“You can watch if you like.” The Master added. “I don’t mind. There’s little else to entertain you.”

_So smug_ , she thought _, so conceited to imagine that she didn’t know what he’d gone and done._ “My generosity isn’t infinite,” she cautioned.

“Neither is your health and you’re reckless with that.” The Master draped his arms over the edges of the bath. “I’ve noticed. The damage is starting to show, Missy and we don’t have infinite lives.”

“I’ve kept this one a lot longer than any of the others,” she replied. “Unlike you, I don’t have threads of silver sprouting out of my scalp to prove it.”

“It’s not exactly a magic trick, Missy. Female bodies age differently.”

“...and I dye it.”

There was a lingering pause – then a joint moment of humour that echoed around the walls.  It was good natured, for a change. She was still going to murder him though – the shit.

“Why didn’t I think of that?” He mused.

“Because like all men, your pride gets in the way of your vanity.” Missy turned her head to the side and opened her eyes. The darkness was brighter now that her pupils had expanded. Outside, through the layers of wood and stone, she could hear the rain beating down harder than before.

“Really though...” The Master picked up one of their earlier conversations that she’d so ruthlessly dropped. “All those decades and _never_ – not once did you and he? Fine. Silence is as good as an answer. No wonder you were gagging for it earlier.  Bet you’d still fuck me now. Should I test the theory? Hmm...”

Brazen, the Master gripped the edges of the bath and stood up. The water ran over his chest and the heat meeting the sudden front of cold evaporated most of it in swirls of mist. Missy averted her eyes.

“So everything I saw,” he continued, through the thunderous chorus of water hitting the bath. “You crafted it in your mind… How many of those years did you spend bound by your _mind_ , Missy? Is that how we survived?”

“The mind is a powerful thing,” she assure him, eventually shifting her gaze back toward him. “In my mind I can go anywhere and I do. Memories – fantasies, it’s all the same in there. The Doctor thought that we’d go mad.” She laughed a little but it came off as sad. “First day he removed everything from the vault in case I raged and flung myself from wall to wall. There was no climax. I was quiet, sitting on the floor in the empty room, waiting for him to return. Focus – you have to have it if you intend to survive. If you remember nothing else from this, remember the still waters. Remember _this_.” She pointed to her head.

T he Master blinked at her then twisted his face in a mixture of horror and bewilderment. “That sounds like some fucking monk shit. Your advice to me is perch on a mountain and find my inner peace?” He realised he was standing naked in the bath and stepped out onto the mat. “Are you going to pass me a towel?”

“No.” She nodded at the remaining towel folded on the floor, which he took and wrapped around his waist.

“You know what’s worrying me?” Missy continued, eyes on him now. “All of this – everything it’s a massive gap in my memory. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next week but I know that it’s inevitable.” She watched him strut toward her leaving wet footprints over the floor. He stopped in front of where she sat and extended his hand to her. “I don’t need your help.”

“But you want it...” He twitched his fingers, tempting her. Eventually her cool hand slid into his and he tugged her up off the floor. The Master brushed his thumb over the back of her delicate skin and felt her curl her fingers against his. “See?” He whispered. “It’s better when we’re not fighting.”

Missy reached up with her other hand and lightly touched his face, following the lines that time had scratched there. He wasn’t going to get any older… That much, she knew.

Her tenderness distracted him and before either of them realised, they were simply gently exploring each other. It was a curiosity – a quirk of time travel. He traced her jaw with his fingertip and she licked her lips in reply. “What?” She murmured.

“I don’t understand you,” he admitted, thumb pressing to her moist lip in consideration, “but I love you – because you are me and I am you. At the end, we’re all alone, Missy. It’ll be us – standing on the brink.”

Her free hand slid down his neck and settled on his shoulder, her palm on the bone to steady herself.  She had a feeling she was going to need something to hold onto as he  pitched toward her.  This kiss was different. The Master was warm and damp from the bath with his usual rough manner mellowed. They met with parted lips that slid together and tongues that caressed instead of fought. She melted against him a little, feeling him step her back against the door.  Then he was lifting their entwined hand, pinning it above her head while the other wrapped around the base of her head and dragged her deeper  into his mouth .

M issy murmured into his lips – gripped his shoulder until her nails dug in and arched her body against his naked chest.  She knew this was wrong. She did. She  _understood_ every consequence. The only one she cared about was Theta.

Her hand wriggled free of his. She placed them both on his chest and pushed him away gently until their mouths parted and she managed a gasp.  “ I am angry with you.”

T he Master felt his eyebrow arching. “ Are you sure?” He was licking his lips again. The Doctor was grand but she was forbidden.  He had her writhing slowly in his hold, warring openly with herself. He knew what would win – the same thing that always won with them. “ That’s not what it feels like.”

“I know what you did.” Missy replied. The Master swallowed back some of his arrogance. “You’ll poison it.”

The Master let her go. He stepped away from Missy and eyed her cautiously. She was just as liable to kill him as she was to fuck him with a look like that. “ You don’t own him, Missy and you don’t own me.”

_He was wrong there._ “The only reason he even looked at you twice is because I spent hundreds of years trying to fix what we broke. We’re excellent at smashing things apart but have you ever tried to put something together? It’s  _hard_ and even if you succeed it’ll always be more fragile than before.”

“Oh dear...” The Master actually felt sorry for her. “You’ve developed a bit of a god complex for him, haven’t you? The Doctor doesn’t want to be revered or adored like some frigid deity. He wants to be _fucked_ , Missy. He wants to be handled rough like only another Time Lord would dare. He _needs_ the challenge. Scream at him, torment him, slam him into the walls and kill off all his pets. Burn a world or two. Make him chase but _never_ worship him.”

“You don’t know this face...” Her reply slipped through the shadows. “He’s changed.”

“I just turned his world upside down,” the Master bragged, knowing that every word made her fume. “Had him between my teeth in the pouring rain, rutting around in the filth like a common human. Same old Theta, Missy.”

T he Master tried to advance on her but she batted him away. “Why did you do it?” She asked, barely a whisper. He was unpicking the stitches she’d put into the wounds between her and the Doctor. “Was it purely to exact a little vengeance on me for letting myself be captured?”

“No.” He was honest. “It wasn’t about you. You’re not the only point in time that has unfinished business with the Doctor.”

“I need to go and see him – explain...” Missy rambled, turning around. The moment she went for the door handle, the Master slammed his hand against the wood beside her head, startling her with the _bang_. She jilted away from his fist. “Don’t do that.”

Missy knew where this was going before it started. That was the thing about her past, it was tediously predictable. She waited for his other hand to hit the door in a juvenile attempt to stop her leaving. As soon as it did, she ducked down, sliding out between the Master and the door. In his moment of confusion, Missy retrieved her umbrella from beside the door and pointed it squarely at his chest.

“You going to sonic me or something?” He mocked.

“Uh uh… Manners, dear...” Missy said. “Or I’ll give you another bruise to match the scorcher on your chest.”

T he Master touched the dark line that ran from hip to shoulder. “ You’re a bloody coin you are. Heads it’s all roses and big eyes – tails and the claws come out.”  He made a play for her umbrella, grabbing the end of it with both hands but she shook him off and swatted him. In the process the Master lost his towel leaving him rather awkward in the centre of the room. “That wasn’t big on dignity...” He muttered.

Missy tempered, lowering the umbrella. “At least no one saw it.”

“There’s no point running off to the Doctor, Missy. He went to the barn. I can’t imagine he’ll be in the mood to see either of us after that.”

Missy laid the umbrella back against the wall and crossed over to the bed, perching on the edge of it. The Master was right. After a dose of ‘reality Bill’ he usually locked himself in his room for a while. “The first time we met on the ship, when you were wearing that ridiculous face,” Missy continued, quieter this time. “You goaded me about Bill. It was almost like you  _wanted_ the Doctor to despise me. Was this all a bit of petty, jealousy fuelled revenge? Is Bill a Cyberman because you got bored or because you wanted to punish me for daring to have something good, for once?”

He never answered her.

“Get dressed and get out.” Missy added, no longer looking at him.

“I thought we had unfinished business?” The Master, who still hadn’t bothered with his towel, stepped toward the bed.

“Were you listening? I’m _angry_ with you.”

“Sometimes that’s best...” The Master stopped in front of her.

“Does that actually work?” Missy focused on his face and not his semi which he seemed determined for her to notice. “Because if that was our pick up line I’m surprised we had as many humans as we did.”

“Were you counting?”

“You were...”

“He’s never going to give you what you want, Missy.” The Master cautioned. “If this is the end for us then _why not_? Why fight and grieve over the Doctor’s eyes when we can _feel_? I know what I’d rather spend my last days alive doing.”

M issy was shaking her head at him in amazement. “You have  _absolutely_ no scruples. When modesty was being handed  around you tapped out and went straight for the cheek bones.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *COUGH* rating *COUGH COUGH*

He’d made a mistake.

It wasn’t only the blood on his lips from where the Master bit too hard – it was the sinking feeling in his very soul flashing warning lights  across his mind.  Huge. Green. Warnings. Like those self destruct alarms on the Yishka battlecraft.

The Doctor’s thoughts drifted to Missy. Her huge, sad eyes staring into the distance. The shadows of the library covering her protectively. She was the most complete version of the Master and from her earliest moments of existence she’d reached out to him, not always in sensible ways but then, when had Koschei been particularly sane? It was the gesture that mattered. A birthday present of Cybermen? A companion that nearly destroyed time with him? A rescue mission to Skaro? To her, it was basically a soft smile and playful wink towards her friend. 

W hat did he do with  her olive branch? Rolled it straight through the mud for a few minutes of pleasure  and he wasn’t proud of himself.

W hy did it feel like cheating when  Missy and the Master were  technically the same  Time Lord ? How did that even  _work_ or was the mind not meant to be presented with these questions in the first place  and so stuttered at the problem ?  He and Missy hadn’t – but they still – and now… It was a mess.  Give him a time war any day. How the heck was he meant to muddle his way through this?

T he Doctor ran both hands through his grey mop of hair and shook the last of  its dampness out.  A pine needle tumbled down and he had to pause to untangle it.  He dreaded to think how many more might be nestled out of sight. There were probably bugs and birds living in it too – like one of Missy’s hats.

“You been through a blender or something?” Nardole asked, when they crossed paths in the kitchen. The Doctor was after tea – Nardole was picking through the basket of apples. “Because I’ve seen ruins in a better state than you.”

“That bad?” He sounded tired.

“Not that it matters, I guess. Missy’s blind when it comes to your old face.”

The Doctor flinched.  “I’m not – I wasn’t...”

Nardole fixed him with a rather firm gaze. “Take some advice.”

It didn’t sound like he was going to be given a choice.

“Be happy.” Nardole finished. It was so simple. Why were Time Lords inherently stupid? “Everything else between you two is just noise. I mean _bloody hell_ , I’m going to rust out before the pair of you get your shit together at this rate – and not just because you pushed me in the ocean that one time.”

“Missy is my friend.”

“If you say that one more time I’m going to beat you to death with this apple,” Nardole replied, and he meant it.

The Doctor collapsed onto the narrow stool next to the table with his cup of tea. He crowded it with his hands, enjoying the warmth. His bandages were in tatters and filthy with mud – something Nardole grumbled at. “Do you have to?” The Doctor complained, as Nardole returned with fresh bandages and an a bottle of spirits.

“Yes, if I don’t want to look at it.” He stole the Doctor’s hand and stretched it over the table before unwrapping the remains of the bandage. The gashes from the glass weren’t healing particularly well. There was a faint glow between the cracks where his festering time energy was literally bursting at the seams. “How dangerous is this?”

He shrugged. “Not sure. I haven’t done it before.”

“What I don’t understand is _why_ you’re doing it. You’re a Time Lord. You could have regenerated months ago – shiny new face, no problem. It’s not as though you’re running short on regenerations so why – why take this risk?”

He grimaced as Nardole drowned his flesh in alcohol. “I like this face.”

“I’m expected to believe this is vanity speaking?” Nardole wrapped the fresh bandage around. “I’ve got a theory.”

“No thanks...”

“Your faces aren’t purely an aesthetic – there’s a personality that comes with them. River told me all about it. This face that you’ve got right now is the one that Missy bonded to. If you change it you worry that-”

“Missy doesn’t care about my face, Nardole. It’s not like that between Time Lords.” He wasn’t lying. “We see the soul beneath the skin.” Or at least, she did. He wasn’t half as good at disassociation as she was. No… He was always getting attached to stupid, sentimental things like the way his hair curled when it got too long.

“If it’s not Missy then it must be you.” Nardole continued. “For whatever reason _you_ don’t want to change again. Ah… That’s closer.”

“Leave it, Nardole.” He dragged his hand back when the bandage was set. Now it hurt like hell. “It doesn’t matter either way. I can’t regenerate in a situation like this. By the time I wake up it’ll all be over or I’ll punch a hole through the floor by accident.”

“Are you going to apologise?”

The Doctor frowned. “What for?”

“For whatever it is that’s making you look sad.”

He sipped his tea.

*~*~*

Missy’s growl made the lanterns flicker.  He was inside her, pushing her body over the covers of the bed while her hands rushed through the  linen , searching for  _anything_ to hold onto as the Master drew back and thrust again. The fabric tore at her nails. She arched.  Staggered for a breath. Then it happened again. This was weakness but right now she  needed  it  like she needed the raging stars.

Her skirt lay at the foot of the bed along with her shirt and the Master’s towel. He’d stumbled at her corset and in the mad fumble they’d left it on.  A regret.. . Her chest pressed fiercely against  its steel rib bing and stiff fabric while her breasts swelled over the edge.  The pale flesh  beneath would be a painful canvas by the time they were done.

S he lost that trail of thought with a stifled scream...

Missy lay on her back with her legs spread wide. The Master liked to look and she liked to let him. Self indulgent? Well, that’s how they’d started – a moment of lust when his hands ran down the soft flesh inside her thighs. Her mind wandered and he’d caught the threads the dragged them all before she could think. He’d rested the tip of his cock between her soft flesh and listened to her breathless moan. There was no offer of refusal after that.

Now it was all rough, heavy strokes and she could barely think about anything beyond how he felt inside her. Her eyes opened  to the Master above her, his body moving in the candlelight. He was staring down at where they joined, watching himself fuck her. The first quake of pleasure built when she realised she was watching too.  _They were the same._

This wasn’t going to solve any of her problems but the Master was right – it felt good. It was all harmless gratification until the Doctor stepped into the room.

Whatever he’d been thinking when he blundered in, it evaporated at the sight. Missy on the bed – the Master standing beside it. In his haste  the Doctor had already closed the door and now he was left to hold onto the handle to stop his knees going.  Missy was making the most incredible sounds of passion and they ripped right through  his mind, stronger than any fantasy he’d played at.

Missy saw him first and mumbled something through the fog in her mind. They needed to stop. Now. The Doctor was never meant to see this  but t he Master only laughed and eyed the Doctor at the door. “Missy never said you were joining us...”

If there were words the Doctor couldn’t find them. He could barely locate the air to breathe.  They were primal – sliding against one another in a perfect, fluid motion.

“I don’t think he wants to play with us,” the Master returned his gaze to Missy – who’d flushed with embarrassment. He liked her better like that, cheeks alive with colour and eyes as blue as his. He slowed his thrusts, drawing himself right out to the tip before plunging back in. Missy cried out beneath him – lingering too close to the fall to protest. “Maybe you’ll learn something instead,” he continued, speaking to the Doctor.

“S-stop this...” The Doctor didn’t sound at all convincing. He was hard and out of breath – a few beads of sweat starting at his hairline. His hearts raced against his will, nearly colliding into a single beat. _This was wrong. They knew it. He knew it. So why did none of them stop?_

The Master counted  the Doctor’s wavering composure as a victory.  _He heard that question._ “Why?”  He answered, “T h is is what she wants… Although I’m pretty sure I saw a piano in her mind and her, folded over it.” That time, Missy and the Doctor moaned together and the Master laughed again. “It’s what you want too.” He nodded at the front of the Doctor’s pants which barely contained his erection. “ You could have had her any time you wanted. I’ve seen her mind…  It’s not pretty. ”

“Shut up...” Missy mumbled between gasps. He was right but still – _shut up_.

H e hooked his hands right under her thighs and hauled her hips off the bed.  Her cry was sharp  as his cock went deeper,  almost a shr iek . Her head fell to the side  with a mane of dark hair and her eyes set on the Doctor.  Missy’s  hands stilled, giving up any hope of hanging on.  She relinquished everything.

“I know you want to say it...” The Master insisted – rattling through her thoughts as if he were entitled. “Say it – _say it_...”

“Theta...” Missy groaned the Doctor’s name as her world came undone. She was staring into those beautiful, sad eyes of Theta’s as her body shook. The tremors ran deep until her head pressed against the sheets and her back lifted sharply. The Master was coming and she clutched on in instinct until he let her slide back to the bed – a wreck. When she managed to open her eyes, the door was open and the Doctor – gone.

M issy’s hands cupped her head  in horror .  _What had she done?_

“Oh, it’s not all _that_ bad.” The Master retrieved his towel from the ground and wrapped it around his waist. He tossed Missy’s clothes at her but she was unable to move so they lay draped oddly wherever they fell. “On balance, I think he enjoyed it.”

“You idiot.” Missy breathed. There was no point going after him either – not for a while at least. With Theta it was _always_ better to let him settle unless you wanted to go toe-to-toe with his considerable temper.  Missy cursed herself and crawled properly into the bed, dragging some of the covers over her.

“Seriously…?” The Master was hungry and fancied a bit of danger, unlike his other half who had cocooned themselves. He didn’t get another word out of her as she drifted into sleep.

*~*~*

The Doctor stumbled to his room and slammed the door. His hand fussed at the lock, missing a few times before finally sliding it in place. The act of it was so draining that he collapsed against the surface. He ended up on the floor, a sweaty, panting mess with a painful layer of material over his erection.

He couldn’t get  _any_ of that out of his mind. It kept replaying. An infinite cycle of flesh, candlelight and moaning.  _Fuck sake._ His head hit the door. If he was trying to knock some sense into himself it wasn’t helping. He couldn’t look as he dragged the zipper down and took himself in hand. So hard – already throbbing against the touch.  _Missy again._ Her eyes on his – the rocking motion as the Master had her…  The way she sucked her bottom lip to drown her pleasure...

A sharp gasp left his  mouth . Once. Twice – and it was over. He came pouring out over  his hand with a violent release that left him motionless against the door.

*~*~*

Four maybe five hours later, Missy stirred out of sleep. Something was scratching around the room. A rat? No. This rodent was considerably larger and currently attempting to pry a floorboard loose.

Missy rolled over and narrowed her eyes at the Master. Who knew how long he’d been tearing her place apart. “It’s not so much that I mind you trashing the  room ,” she began, “it’s the  _god awful_ racket you’re making.”

She knew exactly what he was looking for and as far as she was concerned, he could waste as much time on this activity as he liked. The memory of the afternoon rushed back at her and she instantly dragged the covers over her head  in despair.

“That’s not going to help you,” the Master pointed out.

No. It wasn’t. But ignoring reality entirely might. “ I hate you  _so much_ .”

*~*~*

Missy wandered downstairs alone and meandered through the steady trail of workmen coming in from the fields. They smelled of ash and dirt with a putrid dose of damp sweat that put her entirely off the food. She made for the piano instead and settled to play a bit of music. The room cheered and she calmed. There was something about the wander of notes that helped. Maybe it was conditioning. Perhaps she simply enjoyed music.

_Why had she done it?_ The question haunted her. She feared the answer was ridiculously simple.  _Because she wanted to._ That mentality was at the heart of many of her problems. Control was for other Time Lords. She embraced chaos and all its consequences. The more important question was  _why had the Master done it?_

That gave her pause. It couldn’t be a co-incidence that he’d walk ed from the Doctor to her in a single afternoon. Was he playing them both, driving a jealous wedge between them? Yeah. That was more his style. He had such a hatred for happiness and an incessant need to tear it down. He needn’t have bothered, honestly. Her and the Doctor were fucking things up pretty well on their own.

Something small shuffled onto the piano stool beside her and Missy realised that it was one of the children. Her usual aura of fear didn’t work on them and this one in particular tucked in beneath her arm and spread their hands over the piano keys with a hopeful grin.

“I suppose you fancy yourself a pianist...” Missy eyed the child. It was all missing teeth and wild red hair – like a psycho carrot plucked too early from the ground. “Right well – best at least start with them in the right place.” Missy shifted their hands so that they were sitting over a chord. When they pressed down and made a pleasant harmony the child laughed happily.

“You can tell that she’s a mother,” said Hazran, nudging Nardole’s shoulder on the other side of the room. They were supervising Missy in case she decided to wander off and tear apart a solar system.

“We don’t speak about that.” Nardole replied seriously. “The Doctor’s rules _and hers_.”

“She showed me things when we were in your room.” Hazran’s eyes turned dark as she held the wine to her lips. She could smell the bitter stench of burned flesh.

“Don’t share them,” Nardole warned, when it seemed Hazran might speak again. “If they were for you then she doesn’t mean for us to know. If it was an accident then you best hope she forgets what you’ve seen.”

“Something terrible happened to her child,” Hazran dropped her voice so low it was barely a whisper. “And the Doctor knows.”

“I think he was there… Once-” Nardole shifted under her piecing gaze, “-he spoke of it once. It was nothing really, an off hand comment.”

“She isn’t evil,” Hazran continued, to Nardole’s increasingly arched eyebrow. “She’s _sad_.”

“Yes well _sad_ isn’t really an excuse for what she’s done. You wouldn’t feel half so sorry for her if you’d stood in the afterglow of the worlds she’s burned.”

“It’s an explanation, not an excuse. Evil is birthed she’s – I don’t...” It was very difficult to isolate the spark of good in Missy but it was there, buried at the centre. There were more children crowding around her now. She had one particularly small one on her lap prodding at the keys and a few older ones trying to read the music written in the journal.

Nardole frowned at the sight. Missy was a living, breathing contradiction. “I’m not sure locking her in the vault was the best idea any more. I used to be a firm believer in a six sturdy walls separating her from reality but...” But the human contact seemed to soften her. “... solitude could have made her worse.”

“Is the Doctor ‘good’?” Her question was serious. “I mean you all came out of nowhere and we’re trusting our lives here yet I know nothing about that man except that he’s a time travelling alien with a chaotic relationship history.”

“You have him exact.”

*~*~*

M issy remained at the piano, playing for many hours with the children while the rain continued against the window. They were going to drown at this rate – or become and aquatic species. No one saw the Doctor or the Master.

“All right – all right, that’s enough,” said Missy finally, untangling herself from the human spawn. She closed the lid on the keys and folded the journal closed, placing gently on top of the piano for later. _They were all going to die_. It hurt to look at them with their bright smiles. If she had the choice, she’d rather they be dead than soulless creatures trudging through the mud. _She’d do it herself if she had to._

Where was the Doctor’s morality there? Yes. She’d snap all their little necks and that made her a monster but he’d sooner leave them at the mercy of the Cyber-forges and  _that_ made him obscene.

Nardole reached out and caught Missy’s arm as she headed toward the fireplace. She looked up, startled at the daring touch. It was only to offer her a glass of wine which she accepted with a nod.

“Any idea where your younger self might be? I get worried when he’s not around.”

“Looking for something I stole from him,” Missy replied. “Don’t worry, I’m sure it’ll keep him occupied for quite some time.”

“...and the Doctor?”

“Sulking. I imagine.” She sipped her wine. It was a little bitter but that was natural for something bred in captivity.

“He was on his way to see you earlier. I think he had something important to say.”

Missy flinched. She didn’t want to talk to them any more and wandered off.

“What?” Nardole shrugged, when Hazran gave him a stern look. “ _What_?”


	15. Chapter 15

All her wandering led Missy to the place she should have started. The Doctor’s door loomed ahead  as  a shadow.  Like a hall of mirrors, they echoed down the  corridor – each the same and yet his was the only one that drew her in.  She hesitated.  Eyed it cautiously – which in and of itself was ridiculous. It was just a door. The danger lay behind it.

* ~*~*

A  quiet knock  disturbed the peace . The Doctor lifted his gaze, eyebrows first. His chair was facing away from  the door, staring instead at the opposing wall with the fire place to his right and a single window above his bed on the left.  The farmhouse was an ode to simplicity.  If it weren’t for the pattern of flames against the wood he’d compare it to the void between realities.

He didn’t need to ask who was at the door. It was  _her_ . She had an aura that he could sense coming and right now  Missy was the last person he wanted to see. He just – he couldn’t face what they’d done. Not yet, although he wasn’t entirely convinced the sober light of morning would make  thing s any better.

“Go away, Missy.” He muttered at the room.

For a moment his words worked. The flames cracked their way through the coals. One side of the largest log in the fire gave out and cleaved in two, sending a wash of cinders into the air. They hovered like a well of stars then died.

Metal scratched at the lock. Shuffled around. Then the handle shifted and Missy stepped into the room, brandishing a hairpin which she’d used to pick the lock. She slid it back into her ponytail and closed the door, very deliberately locking it. The effect was almost comic. Time Lords – learning to use locks.

“I thought I told you to go away?” He turned back around, settling into his oversized chair. Yes. It was better to focus on the empty room than her eyes. They were too clear tonight – too vulnerable by half. The rain clawed at his window and the wind started up, tearing at the eaves.

“I’m ignoring you.” Missy replied, steeling herself for a moment. This was going to be harder than she thought. In fact – this was a terrible idea. She should have taken the Master’s advice and run away for a few hundred years. Maybe longer. Except knew that no matter where she ran she’d never shake the memory of his eyes, drinking her in with such unbridled lust that even now it left her wet.

T he Doctor’s curled mop of grey bobbed above the back of the chair. It was all that she could see of him aside from a hand resting one each arm. He was eerily still. Like a landscape. Or one of those paintings that used to hang in the Academy. She used to find herself falling towards those, consumed by the fragment of time trapped inside their frames.

Her footsteps were soft, shuffling over the floor until she stepped back into his harsh gaze. He offered nothing so Missy took up residence in the chair opposite and set her eyes on him.  This was worse. The fire made the angles of his face sharper and not at all friendly.  All of his years were written there  with none of their kindness. The Doctor  was younger than her. That was the problem with time travel. Chasms erupted that could never be mended.

“Oh go on...” Missy began, reaching for a breath of levity. “Thought we could have a laugh about it at least.” Nothing. Just eyebrows. “I _was_ going to tell you I-”

Missy tapered into silence as the Doctor withdrew his hand from the armchair, leaving behind her missing button. It perched on the leather, loose thread attached. A damning piece of evidence  plucked from the library earlier.  _He already knew._

“Right.” She exhaled deeply.

_Riiiiight…_

Her mind ticked over.  Missy considered the implication. Without doubt, the Doctor was aware of her indiscretion with the Master  _before_ their conversation in the library. Hell… he  _knew_ when he’d made his quaint little tumble in the forest with the Master. So what was this really about? Perhaps she’d been wrong and all this time it was the Doctor who’d taken a stab at revenge. Ravage her former self in what – the hope that she wouldn’t notice? Sneak in a quickie and brush it under the paradox of intertwined time streams?  _What a shit._

H er heavy eyelashes flicked up – her gaze, black.  His fingers tapped on the leather behind the button.

“Have a nice walk this afternoon?” Missy asked, drowning in false charm.

“Wonderful.” He bit back his reply. Either she remembered it or the Master had told her. Where did that leave them?

Silence, apparently.  T hat  was the end of that  awkward  chapter  in their lives . Neither of them ventured further comment. What would be the point? They’d both fucked with her past and there was no way to undo it  so they did what they  _always_ did in the face of the unfathomable – they swept it under the rug.

M issy shifted in the chair. It creaked beneath. The tired leather strain ed . It was ready for the end. “ I’ve been thinking about the little discussion we were having earlier.”

“In the library?”

Her gaze shifted to the button for a fraction of a second. “No. The vault. Before you let me out on this excursion you sat me down and had one last go at explaining right from wrong. Morality 101 for dummies as if, by some miracle, I’d managed to ignore the previous seventy years of similar lectures.”

He had a feeling this conversation wasn’t going to go well. Missy always lashed out when wounded and it was at its worst when her pride played victim. “ What’s your point?”

“You treat me as if I don’t _understand_ your narrow band of morality simply because I choose to ignore it.  Ignorance and rebellion are not the same thing. The question that you _never_ asked me is _why…_ Why do I ignore you? Why do I buck against your rules?”

The Doctor w orried that the Master was right  about Missy . There was every possibility that the only lesson  she’d learned in captivity was restraint. Restraint enough to earn her freedom. That was not the path to reform ation that he’d been hoping for.

“Because you’re angry.” He replied. “With me, with yourself – with the Time Lords and with happiness. With the stars and most of all, with morality itself.”

A  smile split Missy’s lips but it was  desperately  sad… “After all this time,”  there was a tremble to her voice. Whatever they were discussing, it cut her flesh from the bone, “Y ou don’t know me at all.” The tears gathered at the edge of her eyes but she refused to cry them.  He didn’t deserve them . “ Morality is  _not_ a path to a destination. It is a subjective, broken thing. Unfathomable and  _never_ right.”  She’d been trying to teach him this since the beginning but he’d never bothered to listen. “ _Right_ is a perspective and you and I, Doctor, we were born looking through different glasses.  We can walk this universe together – if you like – but we’re on parallel tracks.  From a distance we converge at the horizon but  in reality,  we never will. Do you understand?”

_He’d never have his friend back._ Yes. He understood.

“I _love_ the way you see the stars...” Missy continued. There was a rustle of softness creeping into her voice. She couldn’t help it when she thought of him. No matter what they did to each other, she’d _always_ adore the Doctor even though that went against every rational thought she possessed. Mind you, when had she ever been known for her sanity?

“Why else would I want to run with you?” Missy continued. “Those stars that you wanted to see – they are on the same track as me. They come into the world full of fire and rage. Then they lull you with billions of years of warmth only to stage a massacre in the third act – a whim of violence and all consuming death. You think the universe has a sense of morality? It couldn’t care less about your lectures. The universe _laughs_ at your sweeping gestures of kindness  and answers with that piece of shit above us.” She could feel it, even now, pulling at them hungrily. A dark tear in the fabric of reality, yearning for their hearts. “So, to the question you asked me before all this went arse-up – what makes me bad? Nothing. That’s your answer. I’m ambivalent to morality but that is not a definition for evil.”

T he Doctor licked his lips.  It was as if a layer of glass had been removed from  between them . She looked different. The fire caught her left side while the shadows her right. Two faces – one Missy and both of them equally true. As always, she was  correct . “You are what I can never be,” he admitted.  She  _was_ the stars.  The embodiment of all his affections and fears.

He reached into his pocket and withdrew the Master’s laser screwdriver.  The time energy in his broken hand edged toward it but he quickly held it out to Missy.

Her first instinct was to back away. This was not the mental space she wanted to be in with the Doctor when he was making choices about her future. You should never do anything in anger and that was doubly true of _rage_. She could see it bubbling under the surface of his eyes. Just because his words were soft did not mean  that he’d forgiven her.

“Go on...” He waved it at her. “Take it. Give it back to him if you like. I know he’s been pestering you.”

Missy really didn’t want to. She gathered all her strength and pushed out of the chair, leant forward and wrapped her hand around it. For a moment they were both left holding the screwdriver – neither letting go. Was that a second thought crossing the Doctor’s mind? If it was, it died and he relinquished his hold. Missy was left standing in front of his chair, lifting the device to the light. There was no way she could tell if he’d tampered with it. That had been rather the point.

“Thank you…”

“We’ll see.” He replied, looking away from her and into the fire.

H er stomach drop ped at his cool dismissal.  She can’t help the shake in her hand as she lowered the screwdriver. Missy lingered in front of him, unsure of what this gesture meant. Either he’d decided to kill her – or save her and in this moment she wouldn’t dare venture a guess either way. For once, Theta was unreadable.

“This isn’t _actually_ my fault, you realise.” Missy added, tired of all the emotional shit that he flung at her. “You picked this star. Plucked the distress call from a thousand others.  Your choice.”

“ _You_ wanted out of the vault.” He countered.

“Yeah – for a drink at Kalsii and a bit of dancing under the five moons. To go for a walk under actual sunlight – or any of the hundred other suggestions I offered. Saving worlds is your thing. I’m perfectly happy with a refreshment and some frivolity. I think you’re more scared of the dancing than you are of the danger.”

“Are we really going to do this? Because you better be _absolutely_ sure.”

_Fuck it_ . She was not his pet, his project or his wife. Missy was his opposing force. “ Bill died over a decade ago because of a frightened Smurf.”

“Missy...” He cautioned firmly.

“Put a hole right through her heart,” she pointed the screwdriver at her own chest, “while you were too busy performing a grandiose speech. The blue one, he was scared and you were too self involved to realise that your existence is not the solution to every problem in the universe. He saw a door opening to his nightmares and pulled the trigger.”

“And what would you have done – kill him, I suppose? Hit him with your umbrella?”

“No – you _moron_.  We run back into the TARDIS with everyone and call it a day.”

“Let all those people die in the ship – including yourself?”

“Oh _come on_ you didn’t even know about  their existence yet so don’t bring them into the argument. Besides, if you’re determined to mention it, they’re all going to die anyway – and shit – so might we. Whether I die as him or me makes not difference. It’s a zero sum game. I still die in the shadow of a black hole. Like it or not, the Master _saved_ Bill. He gave her an extra decade  which is more than can be said for you!”

“You _threw her_ to the butchers, Missy!”

“It was all borrowed time for Bill.”

“That is missing the point!” The Doctor felt his rage surfacing. He could hardly stand to think of Bill. He’d repressed any attempt in his mind to process her suffering. The reality was too awful. After all his promises he’d failed her. Sometimes his mind envisioned her screams as she was fed through the Cyberworks. They wiped those memories _but that didn’t mean it never happened._ If she ever woke up, he’d have to face her in earnest.

“No but it _is_ the point. That’s what I’ve been trying to show you.”

The Doctor was on his feet. In the sudden motion the button was knocked to the floor where it rolled away, never to be found. “What is this, opposite day? Are you lecturing me now?”

“No I am telling you that we are officially _done_ with these mind games.” Missy snapped, gripping the laser screwdriver harder. Funny – she could feel it bonding to her again, its low level psychic field reaching out.

“I used to think you were clever, Koschei. No really,” he added, at her sardonic expression. “All our years together at the academy and the only thing I wanted was to be more like you. Then I grew up. I got to know you a bit better outside the realm of Gallifrey’s shadow. If this is _it_ – if this is the end then I wanted you to know-” The Doctor hesitated, nearly choking on his breath. How had she goaded him into this storm? Did they naturally bring out the worst in each other? “Your plots – they were _stupid_.” That hurt her. He could see it plainly in her eyes. “How many times did I have to rescue you from your self destruction? Twelve lives? You burned through them in seconds and started off again. You’re unstable – like an exotic particle, spasming in and out of equilibrium.”

“I’m stupid – says the _idiot in a stolen TARDIS._ At least I don’t pick up strays and leave them scattered in bits across all of time and space. You pretend to care about the pets but do you? Do you _actually?_ ”

“We need the mayflies, Missy.”

“Because their short lives transform you into a marvel? I know how they look at you. I’ve had my share. Time Lords become addicted to the fleeting hearts of lesser races but it’s all a mirage you stupid man. It’s easy to become attached to a rose and forget that it’ll wither come the Summer.”

“Don’t you dare...”

T hey were nearly nose to nose, hissing their millennia of repressed thoughts. It was like the wound on the Doctor’s hand – once opened, it refused to heal and started leaking  hell .

“You care about them _so much_ but I bet you can’t even remember the last one’s face… All gone is it? Blank slate. I know exactly what happened to her – my gift. Nasty way to go-”

_Crack!_

The Doctor slapped Missy so hard that she stumbled toward the fire. She veered sharply away from the flames – eyes wide and cheek numb. Slowly, she lifted her free hand, hovering it over the surface of her skin. It was burning as the blood rushed in. A scarlet dribble wove through the split at the corner of her lip.

He regretted it immediately. The Doctor had an instinctual response to her in pain that ran deeper than any argument. He tried to reach for her but she stepped away. Instead, he sank back into the chair and held his face in his hand, cursing himself.

“I – I think that was meant for _him_...” The Doctor offered, eventually.

Missy stood behind her chair, using it as a barrier between them.  This was a  _dangerous_ relationship. She knew that  from the offset. The Doctor was  _always_ too close to the edge of the cliff . It even went against her instinct. “ It would be wasted on him.”  There was blood on her tongue. She could taste it every time she opened her lips to speak. “I-” she tried to start and found herself shaken. “I came here tonight to say one thing.” A beat, owned by the rain and fire. “I’m sorry.”

W ith that, Missy stepped out from behind the chair and moved to leave. As she passed by the Doctor he reached out, catching her hand. He couldn’t find any words so he squeezed harder.  Even if it was only a fool’s hope, he wanted her to know that he was sorry too.

Eventually Missy slipped free and continued on to the door. She gave it a firm tug, intent on fleeing the scene only to find her aesthetic trashed by a lock. Missy swore sharply and fumbled with the mechanism.

“Locked!” She muttered, outraged.

*~*~*

Missy retreated to her room and found the Master sprawled over her bed like a beached cyclone. His snores competed with the distant sound of rain while the lanterns were near death, flickering wildly in the final throes. She approached the mess – first circling the room where she silenced all the lanterns save the one beside the bed.

Her past was peaceful. Awake, he was a restless furnace – tearing apart anyone and anything that crossed his path but like this – in his dreams, he was calm. Missy’s dreams were _never_ quiet.

She’d never felt more alone. What the hell was she doing here… If she was going to die she’d much rather it be for something she believed in. Even as the flames tore through Gallifrey she’d chosen to run. Now, on a spaceship full of dime-a-dozen Mondasians she was caught between a black hole and a Cyber-forge. The worst of it was she couldn’t even remember _how_ her former self ended up on this ship in the first place. Either it was a time-stream hangover or she’d smoked something pretty dire on one of her off-world benders.

Missy shook her head sadly and bent down to the sleeping Time Lord. She brushed her fingers through his fringe and placed a tender kiss on his forehead. Her past needed someone to care – _so she did._ With a leap of faith to the ambivalent universe, Missy laid the laser screwdriver on she sheets beside the Master. She turned down the final lantern and then left him to sleep.

*~*~*

“No – no that’s _not_ how it works,” Nardole leaned across the tiny table, extracting a card. He had to bend awkwardly because it was set too low between the chairs and was saddled with uneven legs that made it rock violently if either of them leaned on it.

Hazran pouted furiously at her card was stolen. “I do not understand this game.”

“Well – it works better with human-y cards,” he was forced to admit.

“You mean, from Earth? Is it true what the Master says?”

Nardole nodded. “Earth is like Modas. An inverted copy except it has its own star. Your world was left adrift, whittling away its energy but Earth storms around a great big sun, feasting.”

“Earth sounds frightening...” That was the odd thing about being trapped in a black hole time distortion – _stability_. “Is that someone at the door?”

Nardole swivelled around. “Bit late. Maybe they’re looking for you?”

“No one is ever looking for me.”

He shrugged and laid his cards on the table. It was only a few steps to the door which he opened. His eyes went wide immediately. Missy… Half her face was swollen and a line of blood had dried on her lip. Malformed tears blurred her mascara into her eye-liner which had been rubbed by a careless hand. Nardole still hadn’t said anything when Hazran appeared behind him.

Before either of them could speak, the Time Lord jolted forwards and flung her arms around Nardole’s neck, burying her face against his chest. He was startled, slowly lowering his hands to her back while his face was assaulted by a mane of dark hair.

Hazran gave him a quiet nod and left.

“You better come in.” Said Nardole, navigating her inside.

She felt tiny and harmless as he sat her down in one of the chairs. If she’d come seeking solace from him then something terrible had happened. Well – he could tell that by the state of her. Nardole knelt in front of her and lifted his hand to her face. She flinched away when he grazed near the gash on her lip.

“Which one was it?” He asked, sternly. Missy’s reply was a heavy tear that slipped straight off her cheek and onto Nardole’s hand. “The Doctor… Oh – no please don’t do that...” He begged, as another tear welled up. What were you supposed to do with a crying Time Lord?

It didn’t matter what Nardole said, Missy’s tears fell like the rain.

He left her there while he sought out a bowl of warm water and a cloth. Nardole returned. He placed the bowl on the table and dipped the cloth into it. She tried to duck away but he was patient, pressing the damp cloth to her lip first. When he was done there, he dragged it beneath her eyes, removing the dark stains and tracks left by her tears.

“We can’t keep doing this, Missy.” He added. “I can only patch you up so many times before this whole thing falls apart.”

She reached up and pushed away his cloth like a cat batting at a hand.

“All right,” he relented, setting it aside. He was about to stand up when she latched onto his sleeve and dragged him back. As soon as he was seated, her head dipped down to lean against his shoulder and finally he understood. Missy needed someone without motive. Someone to hold who wanted nothing from her. “How about we just sit for a while, hmm?”

Three hours later and Missy hadn’t said a word but he did manage to coax her out of the ridiculous corset and into a nightgown Hazran left at the door. She sat there, tea in hand, knees pull up, drowning in pearl-white fabric while Nardole played cards with himself. The soft shuffle of their waxed edges muddled with the roaring fire beside. He’d stoked it only a moment ago.

“Do you want to tell me what went wrong?”

At least the tears had stopped.

“Everything...” Missy finally whispered. “From the beginning to the end.”

“I’m guessing it’s a long story between you two...”

“Have you got a few thousand years?” She chirped back softly. Missy reached up to touch her face. It was the expression of rage not the damage that shocked her. Her hand returned to her cup of tea, which she sipped quietly. “I deserved it, if you were wondering.”

Nardole did not look as though he agreed with her assessment. “You are smarter than he is,” he added, carefully, “and twice as brave.”

Missy shuddered softly in reply – haunted by the Doctor’s insults.

“Missy – the only person who’s going to get us out of this mess _is you_. I _know_ you want to give up. I can see it but please, everyone is going to die if you don’t pull yourself together. You have to be better than him. Show him what it means to be a Time Lord. I get it – I do. You _love_ him but not all love is good. There’s love that tears apart reality. Love that drowns out the world. Love that saves and love that kills. You and the Doctor – you have it _all_ and that is terrifying.”


	16. Chapter 16

Morning filtered into the barn. The beams of light looked like keys where they hit the floor – she could almost play them. A mournful, horrible dissertation.

Missy was the picture of perfection. Every hair in place. Magnificent sweeps of charcoal around her eyes. Polished boots and a shimmering lip, heavy with gloss. A mask against the world.

She stepped through the piles of straw. Over the unused blankets. Around the children’s toy that had been knocked on its side. Right up to the pile of steel. There she knelt with her hand pressed against the cold metal chest. There was no steady _tick_ of a heart beat but there was a soft _whir_ of energy from the power box. Close enough.

“Time to wake up, Bill...” Missy purred over the air. “No more stories. I know you can hear me and I know you’re afraid but you need to find your way back to the living. There’s nothing I can promise you except that when the end comes _and it’s coming..._ ” She paused, curling her fingers against the metal until her nails scraped the surface. “We’ll all be standing when we face it. Even you.”

*~*~*

Outside, the sky was clear. Missy snarled at the number hanging above and everything that sat beyond it. Another level of restless humans, waiting to die. A never ending smorgasbord of flesh for the Cyber factories as they worked their way from one end of the ship to the other. _She’d thought it through._ For hours upon hours last night she’d picked apart her mind and between the cracks she’d managed to rescue fragments from her decades on board this ship. It was all there, buried. She pulled it into focus.

They were terrible things…

Missy found herself choking back bile as she unhooked the Cyberman scarecrow from its perch. It flopped onto the ground at her feet with a sickening _crunch._

“Oy! What you doing?!” One of the farmers bellowed, as she desecrated his work but she snarled until they lost interest.

She could smell the rot. This one had been here a while, stewing in the sun and rain. All the left over human parts were turning to soup. The Doctor wouldn’t go anywhere near the gritty reality but unfortunately that’s where all the important shit hid. Survival was not always pretty. She knew that better than most.

With considerable force, Missy turned the Cyberman over so that it was face first in the mud. She hoisted her leg over and sat astride on its metal back then withdrew a slender fruit knife she’d nicked from the kitchen out of her belt and jammed it into the join between the neck and shoulders. It wasn’t easy. Missy canted forward, her full weight bearing down with both hands jiggling the blade.

_Snap!_

The panel flew off and she only  _just_ managed to stop herself from  tumbling into the mud with the momentum.  She reached into her jacket and tugged  free a purple handkerchief which she held over her face with one hand while  using the knife to sever the remaining neck join on the Cyberman  until the head rolled away  entirely .

Missy fought against the urge to cough out the filthy air  and deliberately averted her eyes from the hint of bone peeking from the machine’s torso.  _Focus…_ Hand steady, she dipped the tip of the knife in between the circuitry, driving it all the way down until she felt a  _‘clink’_ . A few minutes of careful work later, she extracted the neural chip. Missy  used the handkerchief to tug it fre e then wiped it clean and  tossed her piece of silk into the mud.  She held the gold-plated panel to the light.  The surface shivered with hairline patterns. Beautiful.

*~*~*

“You are going to blow _everyone_ up if you continue mashing away at the keys like that!” The Master hung over Nardole’s shoulder  like a bloody curse. They’d been arguing across the laptop all morning – neither getting anywhere then they’d cliffed for a good hour to debate transporus properties in the ship’s hull when really they needed to focus on detonation points.

“Oh great – the Wicked Witch of the West to take all our toys away...” The Master sighed, withdrawing mid-rant at the sight of his elder trudging up the steps. “What’s that then?” He added, nodding at her outstretched hand and the chip in her palm.

“Cute _and_ funny.” Missy cooed at the Master. She hadn’t expected a ‘thank you’ for returning the laser screwdriver but a nod in her direction might be nice. No? She really needed to make a point of working on her manners. “This, boys, is a control chip from a Cyberman.”

Nardole’s eyebrows took on an alarming tilt. “How did you-”

“You _really_ don’t want to know.”  Missy assured him. If nothing else, her clinical handling of violence might come as a bit of a shock. “But I have a feeling that you’re going to need it if you want to focus the blasts toward Cybertech and away from the iddy biddy breakable humans.” Missy set the chip on the table between them. “Don’t break it. I’m not fetching you another one.”

The Master narrowed his eyes at Missy. “You up and vanished last night.”

The unasked question was left to linger. Nardole shifted uneasily when something uncomfortable settled between the Time Lords.

“Slight existential crisis.” Missy replied. “Back now. Never mind.”

Once she was gone, Nardole looked over to the Master and said, voice low, “Is that true?”  Nodding at the chip. It was such a tiny thing – barely a slip of plastic and metal.  He felt like he’d snap it just by breathing nearby.

“Technically… Yes. It’s like a sinker for a hook.” What was more concerning was _how_ she knew it. Perhaps his memories were not as secure as he’d hoped.

“Blimey.” Nardole retrieved the chip from the table and twisted it around in the light. “Smells funny.” He added, before setting it on a plate where it’d be safe. “Any idea how to plug it in?”

“I didn’t bring my universal Cyber-adaptor with me.”

“All right – all right.” That was a cheap swipe.

“Some tin foil and a lighter wouldn’t go amiss.”

There was a long pause before Nardole realised. “Oh  _you’re serious_ .”

*~*~*

T he cellar door was  w ider than normal, made of wooden planks  that sulked grey with age.  Their edges were uneven leaving the abyss of the cellar peaking through all around the curved top. The base wasn’t quite flush to the ground, which in turn had been recently stained with wine. The brass hinge s were mottled with imperfections and groaned irritably as she tugged at the handle.

Her nose wrinkled at the sickly fumes of stale wine, ash and oil.  She backed off for a moment, taking a lantern from the nearby table  which she lit and held to the darkness. Now she cold see the steps leading down to the cellar and the remains of the old lantern shattered,  its corpse stretching all the way to the stone floor at the bottom.

E ach piece of broken glass caught her lamp light, setting the ground alight with dozens of false flames that died the moment she stepped past them. A few crunched under her boots until she made it to the stone floor of the cellar.

Wine barrels surrounded her on both sides. They had a strange kind of presence – more like creat ures than objects. One of them in particular drew her eye. Diverted, she took an unwise step toward it. Laid her hand on the graceful curve of its spine...

Images ripped through her mind. All of them of the Doctor. She was inches from his face, pressing him against the surface of the barrel. His blue eyes wide with terror and lust, all of it seething through his rage until everything blurred into a kiss.  _So rough._ Almost angry as if they’d found another way to fight.

Missy tore her hand away and stepped back, breathless.  How many fragments of her life would she find laying around this farmhouse? What else had the Master buried down here…

Whatever the answer, there was no place for it in her mind right now. She’d decided something last night – laying in Nardole’s bed while he played cards by the fire. She was going to survive – regardless of what that entailed. This situation was  _shit_ and unfair but that didn’t mean she had to roll over and take it or be a chew toy passed between the others.  _She was more than that._

Missy brushed aside  the temptation of memory.

There was a wall of wine ahead of her and a dark, burned patch on the floor to the right. Empty bottles lay  everywhere and she  _just knew_ they were the victim of her youth.  She wasn’t here to take tally of her mistakes. No. Missy was interested in what lay behind the wine.

S he set her lantern down on the floor to the left, pushing it against the stone where it would be safe. Her fingers dragged over the bottles, up and down their dusty bodies leaving a clean strip. She rubbed the dust between her fingers and tilted her head, focusing on the very end where the rack met the wall.

Weight of all the bottles? At least two-hundred and fifty kilos plus whatever was in the iron rack. Missy tilted her head from side to side, sizing up her prey. All she had to do was get it going. Gravity – even the fucked up version on this ship – would do the rest.

Missy braced herself against the wall and slipped her arm behind the wine rack. She closed her eyes, deliberately  _not_ thinking about what might have made a home in the darkness.  _You’re on a spaceship_ , she reminded herself  sternly ,  _not some backwater planet._

With considerable force, Missy pushed against the wine rack. Nothing happened. It stood against her – a cliff to the waves but Missy was an  _ocean_ and eventually they’d wear away those cliffs to nothing. When it gave, she stumbled. The pressure on her arm eased and a nasty series of cracks ripped through the rack as it began to tilt onto its side.  Weight bore down on all the wrong places, loosening joins.  There was a moment of absolute beauty where the whole wine rack balanced on the apex of its front edge, perfectly strung between two oblivions. Missy smirked and prodded it with her nail. At her slightest touch it toppled forward.

Some of the bottles slid free early,  slipping into the dark before smashing over the stone with explosions of glass and wine. She backed herself against the wall as the entire disaster roared at the ground and obliterated itself in a cataclysm. The wall shook with the impact while a crimson tide poured out of the bottles, lapping at the edges of the room.

Missy rescued her lantern and held it to the freshly exposed wall. It was a different colour to the rest of the cellar – cream like its initial construction and at its centre another door,  this time with a security panel.

* ~*~*

“Did you hear that?” Nardole asked, looking up from the computer.

“No – I was born without ears _of course I heard that_.” The Master snapped.  They’d both jumped at the sound and swivelled around to face the house. “I’ve got the horrible feeling that was my fault.”

“Maybe Missy is fed up with your drinking problem.” Because there was no denying the sound of bottles shattering.

“If the wine’s gone, I’m staging a protest.” He took the opportunity to regain control of the laptop. “It’s bad enough being stuck here with an android for company. I’ll not do it sober.”

“Charming.” Nardole sighed. “After everything I do for you.” Though it was a step up from threats of dismantling.

“I barely know you.”

“On the contrary, I know you a lot better than you would like.”

“We are acquaintances as _best_.” Besides, who wanted an android as a friend? That was on par with having an emotional investment  in a flying box.

*~*~*

H azran stood in the doorway of the Doctor’s room. He’d left it wide open – the window too. There was a draft sucking air right through the house, expelling it out  from his room in a gust that tried to pick up the pages of the books he had laid over the tiny side table. As for the Doctor, he was standing in the crossfire, his hair whipped into a frenzy as he  gazed out the window  toward the barn .

She cleared her throat and he turned. His disappointment made it clear that he was waiting for someone else.

“What’s that look for?” The Doctor asked.

Hazran’s eyes were sharp, picking at his. She wasn’t sure if she was trying to understand him or seek out the cracks in his lies. “I can’t make you out.” Hazran replied. “My father taught me to judge a person by how well they treat their friends. I’m not sure I like what I see.”

“That is between Missy and I _and no one else_.” He warned  carefully, aware that he was in this house by her good grace.

She shook her head in reply. “Time Lord?” Hazran queried. “I’ve met three – two?” She was still a bit confused about how that worked, “And I’m not sure you should be lords of  _anything._ If I wasn’t so afraid of you I’d-”

Terror. The Doctor recognised it mirrored in the human’s eyes. Hazran really was afraid of him.  It was a very strange experience for the Doctor to be upstaged in human affection by the Master. Hazran and the people of the farm gravitated to Missy and  her past like frightened soldiers in the middle of a war seeking fearsome generals.  It was instinct.  Only the strong survived, not the good.

“Are they the plans of the elevators?” Asked the Doctor, changing the subject.

Hazran stepped closer, extending the book in her hands. He took it from her before she replied. “Far as I can tell. Found it stashed at the back of the library. This one too.”  Handing him a second volume. “It’s about the level above in case – well in the  _hope_ that we make it  that far.”  She was still having trouble imaging these worlds stacked one after the other. “ It’s a farming level like ours but  with  a different climate. At least it was. There’s no guarantee it’s alive with the ship falling apart the way it is.”

“Oh, it’ll be there.” The Doctor replied, taking the second book. “The higher you climb up the ship the safer it is. Great, big old metal bird. They should have called it Icarus – a human from Earth would have. They have a wonderful habit of matching Greek myth to modern tragedy.” A Mondasian wouldn’t understand, especially one born in captivity. “A few weeks ago I was standing on the flight deck looking at the black hole. It’s only been a couple of days since it flew into the gravitational well… A blink of the eye.”

“You’ve _seen_ the sky monster?” Hazran asked, curious. “We’ve only heard stories, passed down through the generations but it’s been so long since those days that I don’t think there’s much truth left in them.”

“What do the stories say?” The Doctor asked.

“That the only true darkness is in the eye of the creature. It stares, unblinking, drawing on space like the threads of a loom. Those that look too long tumble into those black depths but they fall forever – never dying – never living. A moment between heart beats. The face of the infinite.”

_Locked between one heart beat and the next._

The Doctor paled. “Your stories have it exact.” He couldn’t make Hazran out. She was a tough collection of hope and responsibility wrapped up in quiet despair.  He’d never asked what happened to her family but he assumed they were  buried in the fields.

“I don’t like you.” Hazran added.

“Fair enough.” The Doctor admitted, lowering his big grey eyes to the ground to hide the hurt. “I don’t like myself much either at the moment.”

“Whatever you do,” she continued, “don’t let the children down. That’s all I ask.”

*~*~*

H er fingers danced over the keypad. A cheerful  _beep_ . The sigh of electronics releasing...

“Well now,” Missy heaved against the door until it opened to reveal a tunnel lined in gauze and electric cabling. It looked everything like the interior of a spaceship and nothing at all like a vintage farm house. “Now we might actually be getting somewhere.”

She kept her lantern with her – the irony of the primitive flame flickering against the ruined circuitry did not escape her notice. Say what you like about the basic races of the universe but it was difficult to short out fire and ruin a good old cave. She’d once spent the night cowering from a thunderstorm in one. There was nothing like the violence of a sky tearing itself apart. The way it quaked through the soul with each beat of thunder. That fear was _primal_. It made her feel alive. Those creatures with her were the true survivors. They had nothing and needed nothing. Time Lords? Now they were delicate. Pull the plug and the lights go out and then all you’re left with is a flock of panicking creatures in robes. Missy liked technology but she was always aware, in the back of her mind, that every incorporation added weakness.

S he was right about the rain being a problem. There was a good foot of water inside the tunnel.  F reezing,  it slosh ed against her boots where it immediately seeped through the  lace holes and swamped her feet. She cringed. Somewhere in the distance she could hear it filtering away into another level – a waterfall from the sky.

The tunnel ended in trap door, partially damaged by a fallen tree. Missy managed to get it open and clambered out, emerging in the forest. According to the engineer’s logs the lifts had to be close.

*~*~*

“But how did you…?” The Master did a double take as Missy approached the farmhouse from the paddock for the _second_ time. He was alone, sitting on the porch in a rocking chair with his paws on the laptop.

“Magic, darling.” Missy replied, sweeping up the steps with squelching boots and sodden footprints in her wake.

“Nice try. You found the tunnels, I suppose?”

Missy merely shrugged. “Might have done. Could have done.”

“And was it necessary to vandalise the wine or was that purely for pleasure...”

“Some temptations are best removed entirely.” Missy went to step past him but he extended his leg out in a childish attempt to stop her. “What...” She drawled, _barely_ humouring him.

“Your face.” He lingered on the shadow of a bruise. “Just say the word Missy, I’ll return the favour.” His eyes looked excited for the chance to do a little damage.

“Stay out of this.” Missy replied firmly.

The Master lowered his leg, allowing her to pass. After she was gone he tapped his front pocket, checking on his laser screwdriver. He couldn’t quite believe that she’d given it back to him. 

*~*~*

“Is there a great big sign outside on the wall that says, _‘By all means, interrupt.’_ ” Growled the Doctor, as another set of footsteps entered the room. Sure, he had the door wide open but he had to air the smoke out from the fireplace somehow or he was going to suffocate.

He’d taken up residence on the bed with the books splayed in front of him. When he saw that it was only Nardole, he pried himself off the bed and stood up to greet him,  a bit softer than before.

“Sorry – I thought you were another one of the-”

_Smack!_

The Doctor went sideways, falling right to the floor where one of his hands stretched out in panic before he hit the ground. His legs scooted underneath and saved him from the crash. He straightened up again – wild shock on his line-y old face.

“Nardole!” He exclaimed. The android was a good half foot shorter than him but that didn’t stop Nardole setting him with the most frightening glare the Time Lord’s ever seen. “Right – now – now you _actually_ hit m-”

_Crack!_

He went the other way this time. It was much harder than the first slap, sending  the Doctor into a crumple d mess over the bed where he ended up – hands spread  through the books, both cheeks burning. “What the  _hell_ are you doing?” He muttered under his breath. This time when the Doctor stood back up, he made sure there was a significant amount of space between them.

Nardole was completely immune to the  Doctor’s  obvious discomfort as he tried to touch both his cheeks. “Kicking your arse.” Nardole replied. “ Someone’s got to do it and your late wife appointed me.”

T he android was more careful than the Doctor. In a few minutes there’d be no evidence of this little intervention. Not tracks of blood on that wise face. No purple flourish to cover with makeup. He’d look absolutely fine but hopefully the message would sink in.

“I’m _really_ tired of putting your friend back together every time you two have a ‘moment’. Whether it’s Junior or Crazy Hat Lady they both wash up at my door missing bits of their sanity. Not content to have it out with Missy, you’re actually going to end up unravelling her from start to finish.”

“It was a mistake.” Replied the Doctor quietly. Truthfully he was embarrassed by how unhinged things became between the two of them. It was like they had no safety net and could fall in any direction. Into ecstasy – into hell – it didn’t matter so long as they were falling.

“The pair of you are a _nightmare_. Was it any wonder the Time Lords  decided not to have anything to do with either of you.” Nardole shook his head at the Doctor. He remembered when they’d first met in the snow, with the Doctor wearing those ridiculous antlers. Sometimes, if Nardole was struggling to be patient with his eccentricities, he imagined the Doctor wearing those red protrusions and the TARDIS tormenting him. A reminder that the Doctor was an idiot like everyone else. “When Bill wakes up you’re going to be very angry.” Nardole continued. “Promise me, Doctor, that you won’t take that out on your friend – either of them.”

The Doctor’s eyes were deep and dangerous. How could he possibly make a promise like that? He had rage too and that wasn’t about to be brushed aside.

“You need to promise,” Nardole insisted. “Because those two are helping me find a way to slow the Cyber invasion but if you snap at them with so much as a sharp word or angry fist, they’ll stop and we’ll die.”

Nardole had come here intending to vent his anger at the Time Lord but all he felt now was pity. Such oceans of pity for all of them… They were lost inside each other – these ancient creatures.  In the end it was all a stumble of melancholic insanity.

He wanted to take a step towards the Doctor but he was far too wary of another strike.

“About Missy...” Nardole started. He was surprised to find that the mere mention of her name left the Doctor distraught. Maybe he _was_ sorry. “Do you think she decided to go along with your little ‘vault’ exercise because she truly wanted to be good-” he paused, watching the Doctor’s face carefully. His eyes had lifted, listening to Nardole. “Or because she loves you _so much_ that she’s prepared to defy her very essence to stand next to you?”

Nardole sighed heavily and sat himself down on the edge of the bed. He withdrew the slender journal with the music scrawled inside from his jacket. “Last night she was writing in this.” He held the book up. “But I can’t read it.”

The Doctor took the book and flipped through until he found Missy’s entry. “Old High Gallifreyan...” He replied. “That’s why you can’t read it.” He placed his palm down gently against the text as though its existence  _hurt_ .

“And what does it say?”

“It’s from one of the old songs.” His fingertip traced the circular lines – ignoring where the ink had run from tears.

The Doctor snapped the journal shut and handed it back to Nardole without a translation.  When he was alone again, the Docto r returned to his perch by the window only this time the air was stained with words from his memories.

T hose words were not for him. Missy was writing herself a warning.

*~*~*

Missy left her boots unlaced by the fire to dry and shrugged out of her jacket. While she waited for the others to arrive she picked her way through the bread basket and set herself up with some tea.  Her skin was cold – which had been getting to her lately and scurrying around, half drowned through the tunnels, had not helped.

The Doctor and the Master arrived  together .  They met in the centre of the room.  It was the first time all three had faced each other since… The pair of them eyed her strangely and avoided each other until the increasingly awkward silence was broken by Nardole wandering in with his laptop.

“Here I am. Here I am...” He ambled over to the table and set himself up.

Missy cleared her throat and gestured that they should all sit.  The table was a picture of eerie calm with a lace tablecloth caught in the breeze from the open windows.  Someone had set a vase of wild flowers in the centre. Missy stared at them. There was something unreal about their slender stems with tiny air bubbles crawling along them under the water and drooping white petals. A few lay on the table cloth, curling up like dead Slaters.

“All right?” Nardole asked.

Her reverie shattered and Missy realised that she was the only one standing – all eyes set on her. She nodded, cleared her throat and took a seat . 

Reactions  to her plan  were mixed. The Master ranged from ‘bored’ to ‘do I have to’ in response to her  perfectly reasonable requests. Nardole wanted her to write everything out in nauseating detail while the Doctor – well mostly he stared at her like she’d malfunctioned terribly and he’d have to do a complete reconfiguration.

“I thought you’d’ be pleased,” she said quietly, while the other two were bickering. “You’re surprised I’m helping.” And she wasn’t sure why that revelation hurt as much as it did. “Don’t panic. My motivations are entirely selfish, I assure you.”

“That’s not what I was thinking, Missy.” The Doctor replied. His hands were clutched together on the table. The other two had migrated to the window where they were jabbing at the air, pointing out weak points in the lie of the land. It left him and Missy at the table alone. She was in fine form. A true performance.

“Wasn’t it?” She asked. Her tone was almost indifference.

He was familiar with this version of her and he liked it even less than her bitter tirades. “Missy...” He said softly, waiting for her to drag her eyes away from the schematics and tilt her head in his direction. Her mannerisms could  scheme all they liked but her eyes were incapable. “About-”

“I don’t want to hear it.” She stopped him there.

Her hair was up, curled best she could under the circumstances and pinned in the fashion they’d first met with these faces. Some of the pins were not hers. They had Mondasian-style creatures made from melted steel which wove into her hair as if it were a jungle. A long lock escaped  their clutches and bounced down past her ear as she moved.  For all his life, he couldn’t stop staring at it.

The Doctor reached out slowly,  cautious not to startle her. His hand shadowed over her cheek – their eyes  trapped with each other – until his thumb accidentally touched her split lip and she shied away from him at once,  gathered a map off the table and  walked it over to the others.

He swore under his breath as he watched her go.

* ~*~*

He missed the sunsets. There was no flourish of colour before death in the sky. Its blue shifted through every shade of silver before settling on black.  Then it hung over them. No stars to whisper to. No moon to drag at the restless souls beneath. All they had was the dull glow of those numbers – like a brand ing.

“Why am I here?” Asked the Master, nursing a glass of dark liquor. He seemed reluctant to drift any further into the room, as if the short meander down the corridor was more effort than he was willing to expend.

“You going to linger on the threshold or actually sit down?”

“I’m busy. Be brief.” For once that was true.

A drink probably wasn’t a bad idea under the circumstances but the Master’s alter ego had laid waste to the cellar. “Have it your way.”

“I usually do.” He quipped back immediately.

“Could you just-” The Doctor lifted his hand, begging the Master to take a break from his incessant need to inject clever commentary. “You and Missy. All I wanted to say was _it’s fine_. Whatever it is that you do – or don’t do – none of my business.”

Laughter was not what he’d been expecting but it was all he got. The Master lifted his drink in a mock toast and folded back into the corridor.

*~*~*

“What’s so funny?” Missy confronted the Master, as he wandered down the hallway, deeply amused. She knew all too well what laughter meant when it came to her mind. “Look, we had an agreement.”

“Relax, darling.” He replied, laying all over the wall. “I’m well aware of our agreement and I’ve no intention of breaking it. Just like you, I want to get off this fucking wreck. I’ve more reason than you. Been here longer. Tired of the scenery. Dreadful company. Yours truly excluded. Obviously.”

She shifted her weight, as if changing the angle might reveal more. “How  _did_ we get here? Nothing I’ve seen about this ship screams, ‘must have’. Did someone tell us to come? Seriously. I want to know.”

“You really can’t remember?” No. He could see the absence of it in her eyes. _Good_. He liked that he knew something she didn’t. It was a rarity for the past. “Good night, Missy.” He went to leave. “Unless of course…?”

“We discussed that too.” She levelled him with a firm rejection. “For the next few days the only activities that we’re engaging in are related to escape.” Then she shook her head at his glass. He could drink the entire human empire dry.

Eventually the Master lost interest and continued on his nightly stalk.  Missy steadied herself.  She didn’t want to go back to the Doctor’s room. Their last encounter had left her more shaken than she’d like to admit.  Missy was not afraid of the Doctor. She was afraid of  _herself_ . It was only now, after spending time with her you th , that she understood how destructive she really was.

N o choice. She wasn’t about to face the end in a world where she and the Doctor were angry with each other. They were better than that. Their friendship meant  _more_ than that.

Fuck her pride and fuck his regret.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

“Missy...”

It was all the Doctor could think to say when she appeared inside his room, laid up against the door as if she were holding back a storm.  He heard the lock click somewhere behind her back  even though she didn’t appear to move.

Barefoot – very nearly unkempt, she held her position, trapping him in the  bed room with her. The Doctor set  the book in his hands down onto the floor and faced her. The last time she’d come to his room it had been to apologise and  he’d gone and ruined it. This time he was intent on letting her lead. At the moment, all  Missy did was stare at him with those enormous blue eyes of hers.  They were old like his, creased around the edges. Were those lines hers – smiled, laughed and cried or were they given to her as his had been? He had no idea how long she’d lived the universe through those eyes.

The night outside was quiet leaving only the crackle of fire in the room. It fought against the twin beat of his uneven hearts. Missy had been right about their state from the start. They were dying and she knew it. This face was wearing thin and sometimes he swore that he could feel the whole of time trying to burst through his body.

_That’s exactly what it was doing_ , he reminded himself. The bandage on his hand was a pitiful attempt to halt the tide. If you wanted to do that you needed to kidnap the sun and moon and the Doctor could do neither. His future was set. His time –  _up_ .

F or several long minutes the silence continued to lap between them. Missy was basking in it. The longer she looked the deeper her gaze wandered and soon it took all her concentration to stop her mind reaching out to him. It was all too easy with Theta. He only had to tilt his face slightly and catch the light for her to falter.  _Weakness_ the Time Lords used to call it.  _A trivial pursuit for lesser beings._ Well, Missy had trekked from one end of this universe to the other and in all that hell, through all the shit, in the end the only thing that seemed to matter was a smile cast from his lips.

S he had learned thousands of years ago while laying in his arms that some things were  _beyond_ comprehension. Time Lords loved to pick everything apart and lock it away with an index.  Their entire civilisation was built on a vault of knowledge where nothing was allowed to die or be forgotten. You couldn’t do that with love. The moment you tried it unravelled in your hands.

Missy shook her head slightly. That’s where they’d gone wrong. Her and the Doctor. They’d tried to understand each other when really all they needed to do was  _feel_ .

The Doctor didn’t  follow the slight shake of  Missy’s head but he could  sense her presence thickening in the room. Her telepathic skills were as natural to her as breathing. Half the time the Doctor thought that she hid their true scope, afraid of what might happen if she indulged her talents. He’d seen glimpses of them.  Fragments in their lives when she’d shared her reveries in such vivid detail that reality came off a dull second.  Missy retreated to  them  when he’d locked her in the vault. For months she dreamed.  She ventured so deep  into their temptation  that he’d had to scoop her from the floor and lay her on the bed that she refused to use  and wait for her to surface.

A  scent of cinnamon hit the air and the Doctor realised that she was thinking of Gallifrey.  It bled through the cracks of her mind like trying to hold the sun. He closed his eyes and tangled in a few of her threads.  _Yes._ The umber sky, fresh from dawn and a roll of sand dunes rising out from the black rock.

“You taught me how to hypnotise Shobogans in the desert – then ran away and I got caught. Do you remember?” It was a fond accusation. A memory that the Doctor brought back with a smile tugging at his lips.

Missy pushed off the door and took a few quiet,  barefoot steps into the room.  _I was trying to impress you_ . Her silent answer was no less true than what she uttered. “I love you.”

She might as well have moved the ground from beneath him.

His breath caught,  unsure if he’d heard her right but  Missy’s eyes confirmed what her lips betrayed.  The Doctor had no idea how to respond to such brutal hope so he latched onto another memor y.  He wasn’t even sure who they were coming from.  Her mind or his – or if that mattered. They were ripples in the pond. “Every book in the great library, you re-indexed  them  via  moral depravity. Then blamed me.”

Oh yes…  She sighed warmly. A week alone among the books while the sandstorm raged against  the glass leaving them to stir a bit of harmless chaos  between the shelves and oddities of the library .  _ I was enjoying your company  _ and he had enjoyed hers y et the only phrase her lips would reply with was, “I love you.”  Firm. Determined. It was the  _ only _ reply she was going to give him today.  T he true explanation for every step she’d taken in his direction  since the lure had been set.

T he words had left her lips again. Th ey chipped against his soul, knocking at the gates so loudly he had to reach for the chair beside him  to keep him rooted in the world . He laid his hand on the leather but kept his eyes on Missy. He had never, in their lives, seen her like  _ this _ before. Brooding determination mixed with something he could not place.  A calculated risk. It was as though she were forcing him to unlock her.

Missy faced him but kept her distance. The wall remained a few feet from her back like a safety bar in case she tumbled. She’d made herself a promise. Neither of them were leaving this room until they were friends again. She would not lose her temper. She would not rise to his jest or stumble at his pain.  _ Be strong,  _ an arrogant, shorter-than-average robot had told her.

“ You assassinated the president of Gallifrey, Missy...”  The first time he’d seen her relish power and the violence that came with it. Only she would dare. A rebellion led with the blade. Savagery folded through civilisation.

_ For  you _ . What a night. She’d very nearly made him king. “I love you...”

The Doctor felt unsteady. It was possible that she held every piece of scaffolding in his soul. She could knock them at any moment and send him crashing to the ground.  He  _ loved _ her chaos and her darkness. They were still there, playing in her bright blue eyes. The vault had not dulled them at all. “You started wars that stretched across the galaxy...”

_To get your attention._ All those pretty lights in the sky. They were like stars but with character development. Tiny, contained tragedies flickering out. Beautiful. “I _love_ you.”

He swallowed. Her eyes were looking at him like she wanted to unravel every breath of him.  _ Maybe he’d let her. _

“Used Earth as a sandpit. Humans are not meant to be toys.”

 _When you didn’t return my calls._ Who was he kidding anyway? Humans were the plushies of the universe. “I love you.”

He ventured another step toward her and fell out of reach of the chair.  She trembled  at his approach.  Bit down on her own lip. The world shrank until only they were left, inching closer. The inevitable pull of a star toward its satellite.  He was barely hanging on.

“You’ve twisted Earth’s time line so many times I’m not sure what’s real any more...” Her reply echoed straight back at him. Those words again. _I love you_.  More Scottish every time. Another step and he was close enough to touch but he didn’t dare. Was she fragile or a tempest? It was impossible to make her out. He wanted to sweep her into his arms and hold her against the darkness – to tell her that he was sorry – or say nothing at all. The want of it left his breath shallow and hand unsteady where it hovered in the air.

_Closer again_ and Missy’s hearts thundered in her head. This  _was_ the cliff between them and she was going to push him right to the edge. The game ended here. She was finishing it  for both of them. S tripping back the fantasies to see what hid beneath.

“You turned the human dead into a Cyber army and laid it at my door. After _this_ , Missy. _After this._ ”

_It was your birthday_ . Missy licked her lips at his barely guarded desire. He like her gifts, she could tell,  even when she misjudged the tone. Still, all she’d offer as explanation was, “I love you.”

Half a foot between them and she could hear his hearts as clearly as her own. His eyes were traps she felt herself falling into. It should be  forbidden to want someone as much as she wanted him. They were a danger to  _everything_ and yet she had no will to stop. If she was going to burn the universe for anyone, it would be him.

“You _killed_ me...” His voice trembled.

_I wish I could take it back._

At first Missy said nothing at all. Everything that ever was swelled up between them. Her mind replayed his fall and she felt the sharp drop in her chest as he hit the ground. Their games were never meant to go that far.

“I-” This time she stumbled at the words. It was as though she was scratching them into her mind. Restless. At the end of everything. It’s all she had to fight with. A promise built on a breath. “I love y-”

He came at her like the tide. Inevitable and swift.

His hands – enormous against her slender face, dragged her across the void and onto his waiting  mouth .  The Doctor held her there as she gasped  into his raging passion. It was all he needed to coax her lips apart and devour her in a kiss that nearly sent her to the ground.  _It was never like this._ She thought.  _Never so…_ but then she couldn’t even think for the urgent slide of his tongue over hers and one of his hands clenching in her hair.

A  pin slipped free. She heard it hit the floor.  Roll to the side and catch the firelight. Then her back  slammed into the wall so hard she cried out  against the kiss which only served to let him deeper. Her hands raked over his shoulders as he crushed her  between his body and the wall. His unbridled desire threatened to consume her.  _So be it._ She didn’t care – so long as he never let go.

She could feel  _everything_ that ever was  flare between them. The pain of their ritual wars stung at the corner of her lip while the primal want they both hid pressed firm  at her hip.  His hands, wrapped at the base of her neck and lost at her waist were the frenzied flirtations they brandished before their enemies. Suddenly, in a world of time and  T ime  L ords there was no time at all.  They needed everything at once – like the crash of a wave but they were stuck in the barrel, staring up at the curve.

M issy caught up with the Doctor, drew her head back for a fraction of second, tilted the other way and  submerged him with kiss as fierce as his. She felt him moan  at her intensity – devastated by the truth they’d been hiding.  _This is where they should have stayed_ .  A massacre of  fervour.  The want of it twisted in the pit of her stomach.

It took her a moment to realise that she was sliding _up_ the wall until the height difference between them evaporated. All of a sudden _she_ was  the one bearing down on him – _her_ hands in his wild oblivion of hair while his  shifted to lift her by the thighs. Missy wrapped her legs firmly at his waist, locking them behind his back. His hands were _beneath_ her skirts already, slipping along the underside of her thighs. It left another moan washing between their kiss.

S he could hear belts unhooking. Metal clinking against leather. The drag of a zip. Missy freed herself of his lips and opened her eyes.  _Theta._ There he was. In a fractured moment of calm amid the fury, Missy dipped her head and pressed her forehead softly against his. It was an intimate nuzzle as her left arm reached around his shoulder, hooking on the other side. Her free hand stroked along his jaw before she whispered his true name  beside his ear  _as only a Time Lord could say it_ .

He shook beneath her. The Doctor felt Missy’s lips at his neck, barely pressing  on their path along the tender skin. Her  sentimental attention tore him apart. She had him in tatters with little more than a whisper. He tilted his head toward her, seeking her out as she ventured another kiss lower – right atop his vein  where it tensed at his neck . His head tipped back  but her mouth  surged forward and caught his  while her free hand cupp ed the back of his head  and dragged him back.

“Stay with me,” she breathed. “I need you _stay_.”

Missy felt the pressure on her back increase as she was suspended between his torso and the wall. Her skirt had bundled up between them while her legs were naked to the cool air. She dug her heels into his back, holding on as he reached down. Missy knew where this was going and groaned in anticipation. Her breath quickened as they stared at each other – searching the depths. Her body travelled up the wall a few inches as he moved. Her other hand flew to his shoulder, both of them clutching at the fabric of his jacket to steady her. Silence settled. Even their breathing stopped. The whole world. Time itself. Reality reduced to a single _tick_ where everything they’d ever tried to say was heard.

H e m oved her panties aside with a swipe of his thumb and then drove himself inside her – fucking her right back into the wall.  Missy’s  spine arched against the sudden thrust  and stretch of his cock , hands  clenching desperately at his shoulders. A passionate scream escaped the back of her throat, quite without consent. Her body folded around him, dragging – begging him deeper as his name left her lips – this time as a moan.  The heat from him overwhelmed.  She tried to rock against him but the Doctor had all the control. With his hands under the curve of her backside, he  withdrew – almost to the tip – waited for her head to lull to the side in utter surrender – then took her again, harder than before.

It was that press before the fall she loved. The threat at her soaking folds. He indulged her in it and then t here was nothing she could do but hold on as he  rammed her hard against the unforgiving surface.  Missy heard her corset scratching between her shirt and the wood,  almost ripping the fabric apart.  Her desperate cries seemed to set him alight. The louder her screams, the faster his hips snapped up into her.  It was a frenzy – their bodies starved of each other for so long Missy knew that there was no way that this could last.

She was right. As his thick head throbbed inside he r Missy lost the control she’d barely held. Everything crashed over her at once. Her thighs squeezed around the Doctor’s waist.  O ne of her arms flew against the wall, hitting it with a loud  _thump_ while her lips  split open. His name came, choked from her soul. A wild mess of hair plastered across her face as she tried to breathe but there was no respite. He was still there,  writhing desperately into her. Again. Again – until finally his face collapsed forward against her chest as h e came.

Their strength  struggled to outlast their pleasure. Shaking legs and unsteady hearts sent them toppling to the floor where they collapsed atop one another – a disaster of sweat, passion and lust that refused to sate.

Missy shifted so that he slid out from her but kept him pin n ed to the floor. They were almost entirely dressed except  that  everything was askew. Some of the fabric torn. Other parts tugged to awkward angles. Half her nest of hair had come undone and hung to her shoulder. It seemed to have him enamoured, Missy realised, as the Doctor reached up to run his hand through it. She turned her face to the side, capturing his palm in a warm, lingering kiss. Her hand lifted up, taking his.  This wasn’t voracious debauchery – it was adoration  of the highest order.

“Come here...” He murmured, coaxing her down to his lips. Their meeting was tender – almost chaste. He kissed the corner of her mouth and noticed her flinch. One hand splayed across her back while the other cupped her cheek. He pulled away to brush his thumb over the mark of blood on her lip. “I’m _so sorry_ , Missy. So...”

Missy shook her head and kissed him again. She didn’t want his apologies. All she wanted  _was him_ .

“Not here.” She eventually managed to tear herself away from his mouth – if for no other reason than to breathe. Missy made it to her feet with an uncouth stumble and extended both hands to tug him up off the floor. Once he was standing, she reached to his hips and dragged the remains of his trousers down his legs. He had to rest one of his hands on her while she knelt to stop himself falling straight back to the ground.

“You’re staring...” He caught her, as she licked her lips.

Missy, still on her knees, looked up at him dangerously.  If he was going to tease her like that, he better be ready for the reply.

He wasn’t.  The moment her lips pressed to the side of his half-hard cock he felt the world  stutter around him.  He must taste of  _her_ and she didn’t seem to mind and that was doing unspeakable things to his sanity.  “Missy...” It was a plea to stop, which she did but not without licking slowly along the edge of him until he rocked his hips forward helplessly.  Only  _then_ did he truly appreciate that Missy and the Master were  _the same person_ .  Missy wasn’t guessing what he wanted, she  _knew_ because it had been her, all those years ago with a different set of eyes that had taken him in the woods.

Missy  laced her hand in his  and walked  the Doctor over to the chair by the fire. With both hands on his shirt, she nudged him gently  down into the chair  then st ood in front, letting him watch as she unhooked her belt and tossed it to the side. His hands curled against the leather arms  while she unlatched the hooks on her skirt and  dropped it in a cascade of fabric.  The rush of air disturbed the flames  stirring them into a bright flare.

H er Victorian shirt hung nearly to her thighs. She reached beneath it then slid her knickers down her slender legs and kicked them to the side. “Breathe...” She whispered, when she noticed that his chest had fallen still.

_Impossible_ , he thought, as Missy climbed into his lap  and spread her legs until she sat astride him, flesh to flesh.  The edge of her shirt brushed over his  legs and he had to steel himself to not tear it off her. “You love me?”

_Fuck_ he was  _such_ an idiot. “Obviously...” Missy dead panned, placing her hands back on his chest – one over each heart.  They weren’t beating properly and there was absolutely nothing she could do to save him. She pushed the thought aside. They could all be dead tomorrow – so what did it matter tonight?

“You are a class idiot.” Missy added. “A bit of a _shit_ on occasion.”  He offered no protest to that accusation so she continued. “But whatever else you may be, _you’re mine_. From the moment I saw you. However far you travel – however long it is before we meet again, that won’t change, Theta. You can give your hearts over and over – to every creature in the universe if you so desire but you can only give your soul once.”

N ardole was right, Missy realised. There were all types of love and it was a rare thing in her and the Doctor’s regeneration cycle that they  _all_ lined up  for such a spectacular collision.  They were in the midst of it now. Thriving in the apocalypse.  Heaven help those caught in the fallout.

Her smile was so warm that the Doctor found himself mimicking it.  If he could go back and redo those eighty-two years (no, he’d not lost count  as she assumed ) he’d have made her smile more often. She used to smile when he sat beside her at the piano and tried to play – quite hopelessly.

Missy  leaned forward and pecked softly at his nose as she’d done in London. It tickled and he laughed softly. “Why do you do that?” He asked.

She shrugged. “I can’t help it with this face of yours.” Then she ran her fingertips down the side of his cheek – swept them back into his hair – pressed them to his swollen lips. “ I’m going to miss it terribly.”

T he Doctor retaliated by fussing with the buttons on the front of her shirt. They popped free, one by one in a maddening rhythm until his fingers reached the missing on e. He paused then met her eyes.

If she’d expected jealousy  _she was wrong_ . 

“You don’t have to explain it,” Missy assured him, dipping her shoulders so that the open shirt slipped down to reveal her corset. It was a simple thing – black lace and purple satin with clips at the front and ties at the back. When the light caught it _just so_ the edges of the lace shimmered in the echo of stars. Missy draped her arms behind her and  allowed gravity to tug the shirt off her wrists where it fell to the floor. “If you like, you can look...”

At first the Doctor didn’t understand and reached for her corset, tracing the  _fleur de lis_ patterns in the silk.

“No – no.” She shook her head. “ _This..._ ” And just for a moment she allowed the Doctor to see the library that night. Her hand pressed against the glass and the Master tearing at her shirt so hard the button snapped off.

The Doctor’s eyes went wide as she released him from the vision. He’d been curious _of course_ but Missy was teaching  him something that he’d struggled to understand on the first pass. _It was all her._ The Master’s hands were her hands. None of it a betrayal. All of it a fantasy with the Doctor at its core. “Something for later...” She winked. “Now, where were we?”

Missy’s hands returned to his chest and quickly conquered the line of buttons. She parted it as far as she could while he was seated and leaned forward to launch a new campaign of terror on his neck. His head fell to the side, allowing her to kiss onto his chest – lingering on the fine veil of grey hair. He tugged her back up and demanded a kiss which she was more than willing to indulge.  His lips were made for this and Missy couldn’t help herself.

Using his distraction to her advantage, Missy droppe d one her hands between them and took him in ha n d. He was hard again and slick from earlier.  S he explored, taking her time to learn the veins ridging along his cock like cracks of lightning . His hips lifted against her touch and she took his soft, startled moan as a victory. By the time she rubbed her thumb over the head of his cock he was struggling to maintain the kiss.  Whatever he was trying to say, Missy couldn’t make it out.

She shifted, lifting herself up  by pressing on his thigh muscles . Missy guided him this time,  ensuring his arousal drag ged through her swollen folds before she finally sank down.  Unlike the first time this was slow. Near unbearable. Every inch relished by a flutter of muscles as her channel parted for him.

The Doctor swore – not in a lowly language but in Gallifreyan. It growled onto the air as his head fell back and his entire  body arched toward her,  trying to seat himself faster to the hilt . She pressed back – hands returned to his chest.

“Theta – _Theta_!” She fought to gain his attention. Eventually his eyes  made their way to hers but they were draped in the fog of passion. “This isn’t one of your fantasies,” she insisted, “I’m here – show me that you understand.”

This was the complete destruction of their carefully laid walls.  _Good_ . Let the marble dust settle with the ash and smoke. He wished he’d torn them down several thousand years ago. Or stopped them from being built. It was, after all, undeniable that this distance between them had been his fault alone. Missy had forgiven him but it had taken all this time for the Doctor to forgive himself.

“Theta...” Her voice was wracked with concern. Her fingertips brushed away a duel set of tears, mirroring each other down opposing cheeks.

“It’s okay.” He caught her delicate wrists in his hands and held them away from his face. “They’re happy.” He wasn’t sure if that was a lie. “Please. I need you to-”

Missy rolled her hips slowly, controlling the slide of his arousal against her soaked flesh.  There was ample time to indulge. First it was exploratory touches as they learned each other afresh.  He liked it when she dragged her tongue along his collarbone and sucked the hollow of his neck. She liked it when he slipped his hand down to where they joined and circled her clit in time with her rhythmic thrusts.  He’d nearly screamed when she dipped her fingers behind his balls and caught that tender flesh with the edge of her nails and her breath left her entirely when he plucked up the nerve to unhook the font of her corset  and her breasts  spilled out.

She helped him with the final buckle on the front of her corset and together they peeled it off her torso. Missy was still riding him as he took her by the waist, his palms at the top of her hips  while his hands spread up the sides of her tiny frame.  Now he could feel the way her muscles clenched in time with her hips. He helped guide her, falling into step with his pelvis rising.

_It was perfect_ . Missy’s head  tilted to the side and with it, the last pin slipped free and the whole mane of dark hair freed itself. It rustled around her shoulders, half of it a damp mess and the other, curled or knotted all wrong.  A flush had risen in her cheeks.

T he palm of one of his hands was still wrapped in a bandage. It scratched against her skin while the other was smooth. The time energy beneath made it hot and when he pressed it to her skin Missy could have sworn she felt the flutter of it seeping through her skin, mingling with her own.

She ran her hands down his forearms, gripping lightly at their toned form until she settled at his biceps. They perfected their maddening writhe. He twitched inside her and she knew he was on the  verge again. She wanted it and told him so. Hissing depravity on the air until he gasped sharply and spilled right through her. Missy moaned, gripping even harder at his arms as she rode the waves of his orgasm out before succumbing to her own. The pleasure clutched at her many times before she tumbled  onto his chest.

The Doctor wrapped his arms around her  frame . He was still inside her quaking body and felt every fleeting quiver against his softening cock. He kissed her shoulder, then combed a hand through her hair, sweeping it to one side so that he could nuzzle at her neck.  Missy sank deeper into his embrace  with no will at all to leave.

“Remind you of something?” He asked, after a few minutes of peace.

“The crimson fields...” Missy murmured at his skin. “You and I, rutting away under the moonlight like monsters in the night.”

“I came so hard I though you broke me.”

“I did.” She turned her head enough to look at him. “From then until forever, you were mine.”


	18. Chapter 18

T he evening had only begun when Missy lifted her head from the tangled sheets.  The Doctor’s bed was a disaster of books, bedding, clothes and Missy – who in particular had the current demeanour of jungle creature, stalking prey. He met those eyes with caution.  She was caught between the fire and the pale blue light streaming through the  open window .

Her limbs peeked in and out of the sheets while she’d hooked one of her legs over his in soft possession, as if she were frightened that he might vanish if they weren’t touching.  He  stroked her calf, almost absently.

M issy’s pout was on the verge of a frown. “No – no… You’re  _totally_ wrong,” she insisted. “What Herbroxion actually said was  this , ‘we are all small creatures’.”

They’d been arguing about a philosopher who technically wasn’t even alive yet to defend themselves.

“Yes, I know.” The Doctor continued his protest. Their bodies were resting while their minds wandered into the same backwaters as always. Nothing ever really changed with them – other than their faces. “Small as in – small of mind. Incapable of grasping the expanse of space in conjunction with the procession of time. If you’d bothered to go to the lecture you’d know that.”

Missy  _frequently_ skipped lectures during their academy days. She had better things to do and often coaxed the Doctor along when she needed an extra pair of hands.  Or something pretty to look at. Usually the latter. “ There’s one flaw in your  rote  learned discourse.”

“Oh really?”

She  _loved_ the way his eyebrows curved up in near-theatrical  challenge, taunting her to one-up him, which she always did.  Honestly, it wasn’t very difficult. “When Herbroxion meant, ‘small’ it translates to, ‘physically tiny’. He’s from a race of near-sighted giants that think we’re all  sodding  ants!  He was being unflattering. ”

“What… No one ever said – how do you know?”

M issy leaned over the bulge of sheets between them and placed her hand at the centre of his naked chest. She was allowed to touch him now and  _she did_ . Even if they survived this, who knew how many thousands of years it’d be until they cycled back to this point ?

“I had dinner with him.” She replied and greatly enjoyed the flutter of panic between his hearts. Which would be all the more hilarious if the Doctor actually understood how truly _huge_ the word ‘giant’ meant in this scenario – it would be like trying to shag a skyscraper, if that was his fear. Sadly he  misunderstood because Time Lords didn’t bother with crucial details when it interfered with their philosophy. “Well, I _was_ dinner.” Missy corrected herself. “One of the _hors d’oeuvres_.”

His confusion made the first cracks toward amusement.

“So there I was,” Missy continued, eyes lighting up as she delved into her story, her other hand extracted from the bed to use in jest. “Standing on a plate next to some odd looking, equally worried vegetables the size of cars, discussing the pros and cons of underwater fusion.”

“Didn’t you have more pressing conversation, like your imminent consumption?”

Her hand adjusted her mane as she considered that.  “In retrospect, probably  _yes_ but I hadn’t come all that way on a research trip just for someone to take a bite out of me before I saw the data outputs.”

“You’re _mad_ , Missy.” His friend’s single-mindedness knew no bounds, though he had to compliment her determination. “How did you survive?”

Missy shrugged. “I annoyed him out of it. He thought I’d give him indigestion.”

The Doctor threw his head back in a deep rumble of laughter. She went after him, drawn in by his sweeping smile and deep lines spraying from the corner of his eyes as they closed. Missy rolled slightly onto the Doctor, closing him in with one hand on the bed beside his head while she tried to kiss his parted lips and smother the laugh.

I t was  a beautifully soft attention. T heir lips never quite  made it  then he  flopped his head to the side,  caught in another wave of amusement.  Missy was left to settle with his neck which she lavished with attention until the Doctor’s laughs became a moan . His hand ran down the length of  Missy’s naked back, tracing her spine while her breasts pressed  into his chest.  There were bruises fading on her skin from the days passed. Fresh scratches following the lines of her corset. Fine white scars from histories she’d never reveal. There were whole swathes of Missy that would forever be unknowable to him.

“ _I love you.”_ He murmured, after they’d fallen silent.

Missy had not been prepared for the rustle of Gallifreyan over the evening air. Her lips stilled against his throat. The thumb which stroked the small of her back stirred a lot more than passion. Eventually she lifted her head, all of her dark hair falling to one side in an untamable swirl.

“I love you,” he repeated. His other hand lifted until his fingertips brushed her neck causing a tremor in her skin. Her piercing eyes were fixed on him as if she did not quite believe. The Doctor suspected the cause of her scepticism. “Koschei… Will you ever forgive me for the things that I did?”

Long moments passed. The two of them  poised as statues. Time Lords locked by time. The only movement was the rustle of Missy’s hair where it was picked at by the breeze. Finally, h er hand gently folded around the back of his, drawing it away from her neck so that she could turn her head and kiss the centre of  his bandage.  Missy feared, quite desperately, that he was slipping through the cracks of time away from her.

“I forgave you before they were committed.” When she blinked, a tear splashed against his chest, kicked free by her eyelashes. There was an endless sea of pain between them but she _refused_ to drown in it. “ I’d forgive you anything.” Forgiveness had never been her problem. Acceptance was his. Her eyes stung as mascara mingled with small pools of wetness at the corners of her vision. “Tonight, when I said those same words to you it was not a fleeting sentiment but rather a fact of the universe. Facts don’t change on the whim of emotion. When I say, ‘I love you’ I mean it as unshakable truth.”

“I won’t always agree with you.”

Missy smirked,  then kissed the inside of his wrist . “ Undeniable .”

“Sometimes I’ll have to stop you...”

“I’d expect nothing less.”

“What if we fight again?” A tear grazed off the side of his cheek onto the bed beneath. Its wake was cold – agitated by the breeze creeping over the window sill above the bed. Fear ruled his heart and always had. It was why he found her so terrifying. Missy was the _height_ of fear especially when they were balanced _here_ – so close to everything he wanted.  They were dancing on a pin head tonight.

Missy shifted further onto his chest.  H er  leg slid higher against his  thigh . “Then let us hope that it is a spectacle worthy of our reputation.  Besides...” She added, biting dangerously at his bottom lip. Missy dragged it between hers until  the Doctor let out a soft moan and she released him.  There was always a danger she might  _actually_ devour him. “You’re  _hot_ when you’re mad.”

“That is _not_ helpful...” He tried to counter, but found his protest invalided by an unexpected ly searing kiss. She ravished him with it, bearing down with their bodies intimately flush. He honestly worried that half her atrocities were committed in the name of sordid fantasy. _That she got off on his fury._ Then he forgot that concern entirely in the wake of her tongue begging at his lips.

Her victories were all too simpl e . Missy dipped into his mouth and their playful ness evolved into open-mouthed torture.  There was so much more of him that she wanted but this was what killed her.  All those times through all their fights, all he’d ever had to do was  _this_ . He could have persuaded her  from anything with a promise of his attention.  She nudged him back softly when their noses bumped.  Drew back. Lingered – lips wide – barely touching as they considered the next fall.  _Not yet._

Missy rolled off him and laid on the bed, staring at the sloped planks of unpainted wood on the ceiling. The edge of a book dug into her thigh so she retrieved it, holding it up to the pale light  with devilish curiosity .

“What’s all this?” She asked, flicking through it. Another engineering journal, or so it seemed. The house was littered with the wisdom of the departed but there was no reason for him to have it. “Don’t you trust me?”

It was said with a smile and edge of play which she backed  it  up by placing its woeful spine at her lips, looking over at the Doctor from its cover.

_Adorable_ was not a word that the Doctor felt should be associated with the self-appointed ‘Queen of Evil’ but if he didn’t utter it, she’d never know  and there’d be no opportunity for her to mock him for its use. “Of course I trust you,” he replied instead, licking her off his lips. He turned onto his side and propped himself onto one elbow, lounging. “It’s a bit of light reading.”

Missy opened her lips and pretended to bite at the book.

“You’ll not tease me into some grand admission,” he countered, “for there is none.” The Doctor tried to rescue the book but she held it at a distance, suspended from the edge of the bed in her outstretched arm.

“And the others?” She asked. Their leather bodies laid around the bed in various states of disarray. Some open with their pages to the gentle light. Others face down, bending back on their own spines. He’d never taken as much care with these things as she had.

“More murmurings from the past.” He admitted. “Most of what they speak has long since perished. It’s all rust and dirt. I heard you had more luck?”

“Let’s not talk about it now.” Missy – with one arm still draped over the edge of the bed holding the book, raked her other hand down the centre of his chest.

He leaned toward the touch when she toyed along the edge of his narrow hips.  Missy was more tactile than any of her  previous regenerations. Even before  _this_ she’d reached for his coat or draped her arm around his shoulders for the whole world to see.

The Doctor lost that train of thought as slender fingers dipped into the tightly curled hair above his cock and twirled it indulgently. The only option was retaliation which he seized by bending forwards and pressing his mouth over an erect nipple. There was a growl beneath him and then another as his tongue circled her tender flesh.

Her hand withdrew, grazing across his shoulder blades instead. “ That’s hardly fair...” She protested, biting back a rising moan as he kissed between the valley of her breasts to repeat his torment on the other.

No. It wasn’t  b ut he relished the chance to behave as she did and flaunt the rules. With no care for her composure, he licked hard over the solid flesh.

The book slid through her careless fingers and hit the floor. “Bugger...” She muttered, attempting to reach for it but the Doctor held her to the bed.  Missy liked that even more and let him know it, shuffling and lifting her legs so that her thighs pressed to his hips.

“Was it true about the vault?” He asked, ignoring the plea of her writhing legs and instead took his lips down onto her stomach. She relaxed as he edged lower. Her legs rested back onto the bed. Missy’s chest heaved in slow, steady breaths.

“Well… Not all the – time.” Missy was interrupted by a tender love nip to her stomach. It took her a while to settle enough to continue. “I genuinely wanted to teach you to play the piano,” she continued, dragging both her hands through his hair. She loved to destroy its composure – enjoying the simple feel of it between her fingers and the gentle hum of pleasure against her skin. “Seeing as you wouldn’t let me within a hundred feet of your guitar.”

“For good reason, Missy.” He replied, through his attentions. “That said… Was the rest of it true?” The flutter of muscles beneath his lips told him _yes_.

H er legs spread further apart on instinct while her hips tilted, offering herself to him. The mere thought of what he might do not only earned another moan of distraction but also left her wetness welling up between her inner folds, waiting for him.

“Yes...” Missy whispered. He was slipping out of her reach as his mouth moved from her stomach to the edge of her short hair. “Yes it was true. I wanted-” Her mind faltered as his careful fingers parted her flesh and then her whole body writhed as his tongue licked the length of her slit. “Theta...” She groaned sharply. Her hearts were thrashing in her chest in wild disarray, made infinitely worse when she tilted her head and looked down to find his head between her shaking thighs and his lips covering her centre. _He must be able to taste himself on her_ , she thought in distraction, as his tongue pressed into her. That was the last thought she was able to form for a while.

H e wrapped his arms around her thighs and felt them quiver beside him. Missy  fell open to him – abandon ed any last vestige of lie and open ed herself to him entirely – including her mind which he noticed was starting to bleed against reality. He indulged her a little longer, circling her swollen clit until her toes curled into the bedding and both her arms swiped wildly to the side, clutching at the sheets but all she managed to do was knock another book off the bed.

“Show me...” The Doctor whispered, looking up along her body. Her panting, flushed and sweat addled figure was the most beautiful thing he’d seen. Time Lords weren’t usually about such material concepts as their faces but, as everyone liked to point out, they weren’t proper Time Lords. “I know you can.”

“I shouldn’t...” Her hips lifted in faint waves toward him. The Master had found those fantasies of hers and taunted her with them. What if he did the same?

“It’s a _gift_ , Koschei. Let me see...”

I t was very difficult to refuse him  _anything_ when he slid a finger into her and curled it like that. He was better at this now… Almost a perfected torture compared to their early days of uncoordinated fumbles and half-mad fucking  that still haunted her thoughts.

M issy had to lift her body – reach down and drag him back up the bed, face first. He met her with quizzical eyes as he found himself raked up her body.  B oth her cool hands cupp ed his head as if she were entirely enamoured  by him. “I can’t possibly focus if I leave you down there,” she answered his silen t question. “Don’t look so smug...” Missy added. “It is purely a biological fact which you were exploiting.”

“Purely?”

She nipped his lips softly. “Do you want to see or not?”

T he Doctor marvelled as the bedroom melted away replaced by the world Missy built in his  mind . This was no minor gift. Only a fraction of Time Lords were able to vanish into their own minds with such exquisite detail – let alone drag others with them.

The interior of the vault stretched around him. It wasn’t only the exact detail of the furnishings that solidified the illusion – it was the rest of it… The faint hint of smoke on the air from the pair of expired candles on the coffee table. Dust particles flickering in the great streaks of light coming in from the artificial windows.  R ustles  from the crimson silk curtains beside which shifted with the turbulent air warring between the English cold outside and the heaters he’d brought in.  _Perfect_ . Yes. She had it exact.

* ~*~*

He needed the laptop. Honestly, how was he expected to get half of Missy’s requests done if the walking snow-globe had all the tech? And on that note, the Doctor in all his idiotic wisdom, had gone and coveted the one engineering journal he actually needed to complete the calculations. For what purpose? It was as though the Doctor was _born_ to aggravate him.

The Master’s lip curled in a snarl. ‘ _Requests_ ’ well that was a generous way of saying ‘ _demands’_ .  Who made  Missy queen of this shit hole? He certainly didn’t remember a vote on the issue. Whatever. As soon as this was over he was going to take his TARDIS and the vintage nightmare far away from here for a last hurrah.  Preferably some drinks. A little light murder if they were both in the mood.

He was about to knock on the Doctor’s door  and demand the book  when he  was headed off by  none other than  Nardole.  The weird creature was wrapped in a navy dressing gown, shuffling about in a pair of slippers like some manor lord.

“No. Probably not a good idea.” Nardole slid between the Doctor’s door and the Master like an airbag.

The Master lowered his hand with an impatient look. “Listen, orb, I don’t particularly have time for this. Just need a couple of books  from the stick insect so if you don’t mind...”

“The books can wait. Come on, let me get you some tea.”

“Has someone taken all the screws out of you or head something?” The Master replied, amazed.

Nardole  was wedged pretty soundly between the Master and the door  and refused to budge . That was the thing with being an android.  E xcellent hearing.  Certainly he’d  heard enough in the last few hours to know that if he let the Master walk through that door  a good dismantling would follow .  He wasn’t entirely sure by  _which_ Time Lord but one of them would manage it. “Tea.”

“I don’t want tea – I want my book. Don’t touch me!” He snapped, as Nardole battered his hand away from the door.

“You _always_ want tea.” Nardole did not give the Master a great deal of choice as he nudged him  firmly away from the door.

“What?” The Master instinctively followed the argument, hovering over Nardole’s shoulder as he made the entirely unwarranted accusation. “No – I don’t!”

“The other you does so _I know_ it’s true.” Nardole confirmed,  luring the Master away.

“That is _not_ how regeneration work s, you piece of barely conscious tin foil. She also has a perverse fashion sense. Do you _see me_ in a hat? ”

“So you _don’t_ want tea?”

“I – no. I don’t.”

“Then why are you following me?”

“I am not following you!” The Master protested, following Nardole.

*~*~*

Chopin. The notes tumbled through the room and echoed in his mind, reproduced with such clarity that the Doctor could hear the strike of the hammer kiss the string. The vault had excellent acoustics and  Missy exploited them with a mournful rendition of  _Prelude in E-Minor_ . One of her favourites. He’d heard it often, drifting through the vault walls and right up through the frame work of the university building. He’d  felt it in the walls while he was at his desk.  Notice d a tremor in his cup of tea. It played like a spider web across an open window – barely noticed by all except the smallest  of whispers.

Or was it solely in his mind?  It was impossible to tell  while Missy ghosted through them. How much did she rewrite while his guard was down?

He tried not to think of her tucked away under lock and key, a bird in a cage with a mournful song.  _He’d never realised how mournful until now._

It was only in watching her play that  the Doctor saw the pain in between the notes .  Her wistful look to the fake sunlight. A quick succession of blinks to bat away a tear before it formed.  There was such care in her movement he had not realised the cause was  _fear_ .

H e sat in the chair at the foot of the raised platform and laid back against the leather. T he forcefield flickered from panel to panel, circling Missy for all the good it did. A meaningless gesture of safety.  Just like the vault door. His steeled expression. Her carefully fashioned outfit. All of it smoke and mirrors – drawn away in an instant.

The reverie broke and the Doctor found himself back in the bedroom with Missy gazing up at him with a set of frightened eyes. She’d not meant to show him that  _at all_ .

“Hey – it’s all right...” He reached for her as she started to shift away. “Missy – _Missy_.”

She sat up with the Doctor on his knees beside her. Her eyes closed at the soft caress of his fingers down the side of her cheek.  _It was too personal_ .  He could have her fantasies but not her fears.

“Don’t run away, Missy,” he begged her in a whisper. “Not now.”

Her head leaned against  him as he shifted on the bed, wrapping his naked limbs around hers until she could lay back in his arms.

“You play beautifully,” the Doctor added, and felt a soft, murmur escape her lips.

Missy opened her eyes again and found herself in his arms. “That was not exactly the point but...” His lips pressed to her neck, lingering there. Her hand reached up, cupping the back of his head and all his silver hair.

“I remembered something else,” he whispered, setting another kiss on her skin. “You tried to destroy the structural integrity of the universe with poorly produced cover songs.”

A grin erupted across her lips at once. Oh… She’d forgotten.  Trust him to hold onto something like that. “I admit the talent show was half-arsed but some of the covers were pretty decent.”

He delighted in the reappearance of her smile. The Doctor’s free arm wrapped around her waist and she let out a soft sigh. “We’re talking about songs that could have destroyed the time-stream.” He reminded to her. “Imagine the royalties on that.”

Missy was about to surrender to the Doctor’s lips, which were working their way up her neck toward her jaw, when she paused. “Wait on – poorly produced?”

“They were a bit.”

She narrowed her eyes and turned  on him . “Did you really think so?” Her answer was  a kiss that elicited another sigh. “You can’t win an argument just by-” but he did it again, silencing her. She clutched tightly  with the hand she had in his hair, hanging on as explored her without mercy.  _Oh – well he probably could win like this._ Technically it was cheating but she wasn’t wholly against the principle.

“Why the TARDIS console?” She asked, when he pulled away long enough for them to breathe. He was hard against her back and she was sodden from his attentions earlier. The Doctor hadn’t caught her careful phrasing so she dropped the delicacy. “Why, _Doctor_ , do you always imagine fucking me against the console?”

_There went his hearts_ , Missy thought. She could feel them racing against her back. The mark of undoubted guilt. It wasn’t just her current face either – this particular fantasy of the Doctor had been kicking around in his mind since  _before_ he had a TARDIS.

“I uh – don’t…?”

Missy chuckled softly against his lips – then pecked at them affectionately. “ Either tell me or don’t tell me,”  she murmured back, “ but don’t lie.”

T o which the Doctor said absolutely nothing. Missy was intrigued. She hoped that they both lived long enough that she’d have the chance to dig through his secrets.

“Well,” she continued, sliding her other hand down to his thigh which she stroked. This body he had now was all muscle and bone – limbs a bit too long and hair a bit too manic. All of which she loved, of course. “If you’re not going to tell me why you could at least show me _how_.” Missy challenged. She enjoyed the sudden shortness of his breath. Finding his weak spots was her speciality.

The Doctor ghosted his lips next to her ear and hissed an instruction that made her dig her nails into his skin.  When he was done, Missy untangled herself from all those limbs of his and crawled forward on the bed. There she remained, on her hands and knees among the twisted sheets and forgotten pillows. She tilted her hips back, presenting herself so boldly that it took the Doctor a moment to fashion enough courage to approach.

Facing away from him, Missy focused on the sound of his approach.  Her arousal was  a  visible  glisten in her curls.  His hands touched her first, following the curve of her backside. She wondered how bold the Doctor was with his humans… Was it all a bit of a fumble in the TARDIS or did he take them, uncaring, wherever he chose? She  _enjoyed_ hers but they were throw-away cutlery compared to him.  _Mmm…_ Her mind wandered as he squeezed her flesh possessively, encouraging her legs a little further apart. Right now she was certain she’d die right here if he didn’t fuck her for all he was worth.

H e was large and particularly wide at the tip. Something Missy remembered with a heavy growl as he pressed himself against her entrance, waiting for her to rock back onto him. She did. He slid against her – stretching – then passed the threshold where her body relaxed. The rest was a smooth slide, all the way until his balls  met her arse. There wasn’t going to be anything left of her after this. All she wanted was the feel of him moving inside her.

“Hurry up and fuck me...” Missy stammered.

When he did, Missy almost regretted  her demand . She was  _never_ going to be able to look at him the same way knowing how this felt. After this they’d  _always_ want each other. It was hopeless. Even the sound of it on the air filled her mind. It was so base a thing for a Time Lord to do but that only made her want it more.  It was the same for him, she could tell.  Rebels to the core.

The whole bed moved with his heavy strokes. They rolled on top of one another and all she could do was curl her fingers in the sheets and let him have her. For a fraction of a second, she  managed to glance over her shoulder  and peer through her mane of knotted hair to see his body mid-fuck.  _So beautiful_ , she thought.

They laid over each other when they were done,  both of them slick with sweat and exhausted into drowsy kisses that eventually faded to tangled hands. Then they slept entirely at peace with no mind to the horrors stirring with the dawn.

*~*~*

The Master  _did_ enjoy tea but to admit so now would be a  form of surrender. Instead he’d perfected, ‘sipping with a scowl’ while they played cards and discussed the strategy for the tests they intended on running tomorrow. In the intervening hours the Master discovered why he’d been prevented for retrieving the book. Quite frankly the shrieks on the air were hard to mistake. Missy was loud. They’d died down now, which was good, because they’d been distracting  him from the  card game.

“Does it bother you?” Nardole asked curiously, while the Master shuffled through his cards.

“You bother me constantly,” he replied, misunderstanding. “Which is why I do my best to remind you of your irritating qualities at every opportunity.”

“No.” Nardole corrected him. “Them. The – well,” he nodded at the open window. “The new state of affairs.”

The Master’s eyes darted to the window and returned to Nardole. “Oh.  _That_ . Not really. No.” ‘Bother’ was the wrong word.  Missy’s intentions toward the Doctor were no secret, especially not to him. “Should it?”

Nardole side-eyed the card the Master set down. He understood that Time Lords were fast learners but the Master had an uncanny ability to win without much effort. “Well – that is your future you just listened to. I’m not sure how I’d feel about knowing something like that.”

Androids were tedious. Whomever gave them the ability to ask questions should have been shot. “I don’t expect you to understand.” He replied. “The frame of perspective is beyond your reach.” It was an unusually honest answer from him. “And you’ve had it.” He added, setting down a winning card.

Nardole swore. He’d never lost so much in his life. “You’re not going to remember any of this, are you?”

“It’s not looking hopeful.”

“Well in that case,” Nardole added, “the first day I met you was the day that you were scheduled to die. It _might_ surprise you to learn that I came to talk the Doctor out of executing you.”

“The Doctor would never kill me.” The Master pointed out boredly.

“That is the lesson I learned that day and I guess – well I had a question – _why_?”

The Master leaned back in the chair to shuffle the cards. He started at the weird collection of machinery and flesh in front of him. Nardole was basically a head stitched onto a dishwasher. “How long have you known me?”

By that he meant Missy, Nardole realised. “A little over eighty years.”

He bawked slightly at that. “Decent patch of time. Did you  _never_ think to ask that before?”

“Of course,” Nardole replied. He’d thought about it all the time however there was something about a dangerous Time Lord locked inside a vault and surrounded by a forcefield that came off as ‘less than approachable’. “But Missy is not one for answers. One of her favourite games was to give a different answer to the same question every day to, ‘keep things interesting’ so I held out no hope for a serious question like that.”

“Why do you care?”

“Pure curiosity.”

“I make him better.” The Master replied. Nardole’s face was a picture of surprise. “The Doctor is worried that if he kills me, in time, he’ll turn _into_ me. He has the capacity for darker things than I’ve ever dreamed.  You should be under no illusions there. He drew first blood and now he uses me as a board to bounce himself back into the light.”

T he more Nardole thought about it, the more he realised it was  _true_ . Missy was indifferent, opportunistic, indulgent, predatory and dangerous but she wasn’t  _dark_ . There was darkness in the Doctor’s eyes. “Then you better do us a favour and live.”

The Master eyed Nardole like he was the dumbest cunt ever forged.

“What?”

He pointed to himself.

“What...” Nardole still didn’t understand.

“I have a one-hundred percent survival success rating from this little _soiree_ otherwise I wouldn’t be five doors down the corridor fucking the life out of a crusty Time Lord.”

“Oh. Right.” Nardole cleared his throat. He tried very hard _not_ to remember the scene he’d interrupted a few days ago. “Another game?”

The Master handed the cards over. “Might as well.”


	19. Chapter 19

The morning came upon them gradually.  There was no rising sun or chorus of birds to wake the ship. Instead, the theatre of lights brightened in silence while patches of mist, masquerading as clouds, drifted above like ghosts.

M issy was sound asleep, tucked into  the Doctor’s side where she sought refuge from the light. He stroked her hair.  Listened to the sound of her breath against the pillow. Love had never been their problem. They had boundless tides of it. Stability – that was harder.

Moments like these were more precious than air.  Centuries turned and died without him ever happening upon them – if he saw her at all.  The Doctor tried to memorise it.  T o take in every second of the changing  glow over her cheek and the way she curled her hand softly on his chest but he did not have her skill.  This would fade as surely as the night and in the sobriety of his future he wondered if these forgotten  paragraphs , pressed between the years of their life, would be enough to save them.

* ~*~*

Hours later, Missy sat opposing the Master with a hand-made chessboard between them on the table. There was nothing to do but wait for Nardole to return from his tests so they’d set themselves up for a battle of wits, neither it seemed, able to see the irony.

Their behaviour was moderated by other members of the farm milling in and out  of the dining hall . Hazran in particular hovered around the room imagining herself an invisible jailer but Missy knew  _all about_ imprisonment  and sniffed her out at once with a disconcerting ‘wink’ .  There was a pot of tea beside  the board which the Master poured f or both of them from time to time.

M issy marvelled at the inane action of taking tea while the world prepared for its final gasp.

T he Doctor stumbled into the room like a cinder struck off a bonfire. Soot everywhere – hair madder than normal, suit littered with fresh tears but not injured, if the state of his grin was anything to go by.

The Master glanced over, barely managed an expression of interest and said, “You were ages. How bloody long does it take  to perform a simple test?”

“Thanks very much...” The Doctor replied, but his mood was irrepressibly pleased. He wiped his hands on his suit but that only made them blacker by which point Hazran held out a ratty towel for him to use instead.

“He looks like a common chimney sweep.” Missy muttered under her breath, making another move.

“Well, aren’t you going to ask me how it went?” The Doctor chirped.

“Is there any need to?” The Master returned his attention to the chest board. He lifted a pebble place-holding for a pawn. “You’re alive ergo it worked.”

Missy watched the Doctor silently. She could not bring herself to show let alone admit that she’d been worried at the tremble of distant explosions and  by  the sight of an ash cloud  drifting up from the forest.  Is that what she was going to do now – worry?

“I’m fine too, thanks.” He added, before casually strolling over to the pair of Time Lords. There was a smell of burnt toast about him and he shed a fine layer of ash as he leaned over the table. “Who’s winning?”

“Me.” Came their collective reply.

The Doctor was  sure that he felt the universe twitch. There was an entire philosophy discipline  strewn over  the table in a drunken wreck.  It was instinct when he bent down and kissed Missy’s cheek softly with a murmur of,  _‘I’m all right,’_ against her ear.

Missy nearly indulged him but remained firm as  he slipped away,  barely flinching at his touch .  Displays of affection in front of the Master was the fastest way to get yourself killed.  She understood her own jealousy far too well to risk stirring it. “ What about Nardole?” Missy asked, rubbing a black smudge off her cheek. “I presume you didn’t leave him in a crater somewhere?”

“Goodness, that almost came out as affection.”

If the Doctor had still been within reach she’d have hit him for such a filthy suggestion. Just because she’d taken a fondness to him didn’t mean that the flood gates were now open to any creature  and certainly not one that had more in common with a teacup. “He’s got the laptop.”

T he Doctor leaned against the wall and set about wiping the rest of the soot off his face. “He’ll be along in a minute. Have to say, the pair of you were right about the calculations. Turns out you  _can_ set fire to the ship if you misbehave enough with the wiring  below deck.”

“Obviously...” Missy drawled.

“It is, after all, a bundle of wires and electrical charge. Any moron knows that.” The Master hopped another piece over the board. The pair of them were inching closer and closer to stalemate.

*~*~*

Hazran fussed over Nardole when he bumbled in, slightly singed but nowhere near as dire as the Doctor looked.

“Don’t worry about it.” The Master chirped up unkindly. “Just unscrew the head and rinse it in the sink.”

Nardole was used to the lazy, vaguely humorous threats but Hazran turned with a glare. “No...” Nardole caught her arm. “Leave it.  _Excellent joke_ .” He added, nodding at the Master, who’d already lost interest.  He lowered his voice and tugged Hazran closer to whisper, “Remember what I said about those two?”

It took Hazran a few breaths to settle but eventually she nodded.

“There’s one more thing, Hazran,” Nardole added, for the benefit of the room. “The farming days for this place are over. As of now, we need to begin fortifying the building for the last stand. When we were out there we could hear something moving beneath the ground. The Doctor thinks it might be the lifts rising.”

The Doctor nodded. “There was definitely something under our feet that wasn’t there before.”

Hazran cast her eyes down to the floor for a moment. It wasn’t the same for them. This wasn’t their home – these weren’t their children. The truth was she could feel something shifting beneath as well... “And – and what do I tell them?” Hazran asked. “They’re going to be terrified. It’s mostly children here.”

“Pretend it’s a game.” The Doctor replied. “A new game for them to play.”

While Hazran nodded in acceptance and left to fetch the other workers, Missy felt sick to her stomach. _Yes_ , the Doctor had no choice and his suggestion was perfectly sound in merit but the manipulation of children in a war zone, even for their own safety, left her pale.

“Excuse me.” She said, leaving the table. The Master lifted his hands in annoyance but before anyone could raise an actual protest she’d fled the room.

“This is your fault,” the Master scorned the Doctor as he wandered over.

“How do you figure that?”

“Well look at her – me...” The Master replied, gesturing vaguely in the direction Missy had vanished. “A few cute words from you and she’s gone all soft. Fuck her – by all means-” and in the background Nardole could be heard awkwardly clearing his throat, “but whatever else you’re doing has made her all… Well, you saw. It’s sickening, quite frankly. I might have to put myself out of my own misery.”

The Doctor’s expression  remained entirely unreadable. “ She’s trying to be good.”

There was a cruel streak of laughter in reply. “Is she?” Because that was  _not_ what was going on and the Doctor bloody knew it. “Now sit down.” The Master added. “I need to ask you some questions about the test. Been waiting all damn morning.”

*~*~*

In the end, the Doctor had to bathe to remove the layers of filth. The mud and ash came off but the dreadful thrum of the lifts rumbling to life beneath their feet wouldn’t shift out of his mind. They were coming – oh they were coming. He dressed again and re-bound his bandage, for all the good it did. The wound on his hand was getting worse – not better. His body _wanted_ to regenerate. It was shouting in his head, like an alarm going off. This _delay_ that he was imposing was not natural.

When he returned downstairs he found it littered with small children racing about. They tracked dirt from one end of the house to the other as they raided its rooms for pillow cases and anything that could pass as sack to be made into a sand bag.

“Missy?” He found her hovering near the front door and reached for her hand. “What’s going on?”

She  allowed herself  to be tugged  slightly backwards toward the Doctor. The buzz of time energy rippled from his bandage to her skin.  _That was getting worse._ Missy lifted her gaze to his eyes. “A game – as you said.” Missy replied, nodding at the children. “They are quite enjoying themselves, don’t you think?” The words tasted bitter as she uttered them – more so as the continued to scurry past, all smiles. “What?” She added, as he led her away from the door. “I am actually in the middle of something!”

H e didn’t seem to care, keeping a tight hold of her hand as they walked down the corridor. The noise of the children faded and was immediately replaced by the near-deafening hammering as boards were fixed over the windows. About half now hung as blank voids. With no one bothering to light the lamps the hallway shifted into unexpected twilight. Amongst these shadows, the Doctor brought them to a stop and stared at her intensely.

“I don’t understand what you w-” Missy started to say, but he cut her off with a sudden kiss. Her breath staggered as he plied open her lips. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders on instinct while his hand settled on her back reverently. His passion was met with a quiet murmur of surrender. Why did he have to be like this? “Theta...” She nudged him back a little, gently pressing her forehead to his. “There isn’t time. One of the children...” Missy’s hand brushed down his cheek. There was nothing Missy could do about her weakness for him. “They said that they heard noises coming from the barn. I was about to head over there and see...”

He wanted to kiss her again. The war inside his mind was plain for anyone to see but Missy ended the conflict for him with a light brush of lips – a chaste indulgence before she slid her hands down his arms in a reluctant withdrawl.

“Come with me?” She asked. “If Bill really is waking up we both know who she’d rather see.”

The Doctor  followed but his footsteps felt heavy.  _Bill_ . That was somewhere he didn’t feel that he could go  _with Missy_ . His denial had been co-existing happily up until this point. Saving the farm from the impending Cybermen invasion and facing death was one thing. He could handle that but facing Bill as a Cyberman? How did he even begin to unpack what that meant…

I t was only Missy’s hand, tightly laced with his, that kept him moving forwards as they left the farmhouse and started out across the grass. They had to dodge the farmers and children who swarmed around the grounds like bees to a hive.  It was incredible what humans could accomplish with the proper motivation. The farmhouse was beginning to look quite impressive – even if the most it would buy them was a day or so.

“Where’s Junior?”

Missy nodded towards the woods. “Out looking for those lifts again with Nardole. We’ve narrowed their location down significantly but the genius who hid them with the holographic filters did their job a little too well, I dare say.” Her heel caught in a patch of mud and she would have fallen if not for his firm grip. “I thought it was best to walk him.” She added. “He’s not – well...” How to put this? “I’m not sure what he thinks about _this_ arrangement.”

They were nearly at the barn when the Doctor pulled them both to a stop. “Did he threaten you?”

“No. Certainly not. I don’t think he even cares what kind of depravity we get up to. That’s never bothered him – me.” Missy forced herself not to blush. This felt as though she was giving away far too much personal information about herself. A level playing field was vital when it came to the Doctor and her intimate secrets were not fodder for the floor. “It’s the other thing he doesn’t like...”

There was no need for her to elaborate, the Doctor understood.  _Emotion_ was a nightmare for the Master, particularly this face. He revelled and drank it to excess but abhorred it in others, no more so than Missy. The Doctor had seen glimpses of it during their time on the farm. To the Master it was  _weakness_ .

“If he’s busy trudging around behind Nardole,” Missy continued, “we can delay any consequences of his rising annoyance until we’re off this ship.”

“And then?” He asked.

“Who knows…” Though she imagined it would be quite the conversation. “Maybe he’ll swan off back into the endless string of questionable parties and bars he was enjoying before this.”

The Doctor shook his head, deeply troubled. “But Missy, you don’t remember anything beyond this ship, do you? I thought as much.”

She attempted to hand wave it with, “Messed up time lines.” But it was left hanging in the air as they continued their walk toward the barn. It wasn’t _nothing._ Missing time in a Time Lord’s life was a serious problem.

“The children were right,” Missy added. There was a loud _crack_ as the Doctor slid open the bolts that  locked the barn door. “Can you hear the beeping?” It was like an oven timer going off. Inside they found Bill on the floor – turned down in the hay, stomach first. “She must have rolled over. Here – help me with her.”

Missy bent down to her knees straight away and reached for the Cyberman. The Doctor hesitated a few steps away, gripped by terror. He couldn’t drag his eyes away from Bill’s metal corpse. Something inside him had broken and rendered him entirely useless.

“Oh for pity’s sake!” Missy muttered, left to roll Bill onto her back all by herself. It was a struggle but hardly the first Cyberman she’d manhandled in her time. Once done, she dusted off the panel of lights along the chest plate. “I’m not entirely sure with this version but I think we’ve got a boot sequence. Your little friend is waking up.”

_What then?_ The Doctor  asked himself. The urge to end it all here renewed itself. Better that Bill never wake at all. What was the point in exposing her to all this suffering only to die? It certainly wasn’t for hope. If anything it was the selfish impulse that having a Cyberman on their side might help things along. That was a cold and heartless thing to do.  He wasn’t even convinced that it was  _right_ .

He  was so deep in his thoughts that he hadn’t even noticed that Missy was back on her feet. “ I know you’re sad,” she addressed him sternly, “but she is  _waking up_ . What good are you to  Bill if you can’t even speak? Snap. Out of it.” Missy shook him firmly by the shoulders.  The jolt was enough to find his tongue.

“And what am I meant to tell her?” He replied.

Missy backed off when  their eyes met .  His had changed so much in a fraction of a second. He was looking at her like she was  _him_ . The Master.  Projecting the hate and blame straight into her.  “The truth.”  Missy whispered.

“I told her that I could fix this – when I was in her head. I promised. She’s had that thought in her mind for more than a decade.”

“You were wrong. It happens.”

This was all dancing around the true problem  which was  _resentment_ . Missy caused this – one way or another and he knew that.  The Doctor had not so much as raised a sharp word in her direction over the whole thing and yet Missy could hear the Master’s taunting words in her ear.  _‘He will never forgive you. He will lock you up forever.’_ Maybe that is exactly what the Doctor intended to do with her when this was done and she was the fool for thinking anything different.  Everything before... That was only smoke.

“Missy – she’s a – she’s a _corpse_.” The Doctor pointed at the Cyberman. “Do you remember your little birthday present you gave me all those years ago?”

“Of _course_.” They’d gone over the length and breath of why that was ‘morally undesirable’ for decades.

“Well I had to stand there and listen to Danny Pink explain what it was like to be dead. How it felt to be put back together as a part of a machine without a heart beat – rotting away inside a casing. Death he was fine with but conversion? Becoming a mindless soldier in a ruined husk was unbearable.”

Missy wasn’t sure if it would make things better or worse to point out that this was a completely different type of Cyberman. There was next to nothing of the real Bill left except a spinal column and brain stem. He wouldn’t be able to process information like that so she remained silent.

“I still can’t fathom why you did that, Missy. All those people through Earth’s history. Couldn’t you just let them die?”

Missy’s hands were still on his shoulders. She did not want to let go and curled them into the fabric of his jacket. There was something shifting inside the Doctor – threatening to crawl out into the light and she was frightened it might destroy everything they’d built down here. “That was the past. You promised.”

“But you never told me _why_. Maybe if I understood  your reasoning then I could understand...” He dropped the thought mid-sentence and looked at Bill. No. That was wrong. He understood Bill perfectly well. She was a punishment that he’d earned all on his own.

“You’re right.” Missy’s hands fussed with the lapels on his jacket. “I never told you.” And there were good reasons for it but those were fading with the days remaining on their lives. Maybe it was time to tell him. Perhaps she should have done it from the start. “The true horror of that experiment I conducted was not the humans walking around in metal skins or the lies I spun to terrify people into allowing the creation of 3W. None of that.”

The Doctor was confused. It was in the eyebrows – the way they furrowed at strange angles. His arms were flat to his side when normally he’d want to hold her. No. Right now they were closer to when she’d first met him outside those hideous, skeletal tanks.

“It was the slither of Time Lord matrix that I stole.”

He was momentarily dragged from his thoughts on Bill. “I don’t understand,” he said, quite seriously.

“Well,” This is not how she’d wanted to tell him, “let us just say that I had plenty of time to play around with that little piece of our brethren’s tech – far more than they ever allowed us to while we were at the academy.” He’d been fascinated by it too back in the day. The pair of them sneaking about into places they shouldn’t – in and out of the Cloisters. “I pulled it apart from one end to the other and discovered more than I intended about our futures as Time Lords. Well, to put it mildly, our future deaths.”

“Missy I-” The Doctor wasn’t sure what to say.

“You know as well as I the quaint Time Lord fairy tales used to soothe semi-immortal beings who have trouble fathoming the finality of their existence. I mean – I think we all knew it was an horrific concept when we first heard about the process and you and I have both walked through it on occasion but not until I took its pieces out was I able to appreciate the full terror. The Matrix is a prison… A suspended reality where we live not as peaceful echoes of ourselves after death but in eternal torment. It is a sentient piece of technology whose only goal is to extract information from us. Even the tiny splice of it that I stole for my experiment began to behave in the same way. The more minds I uploaded, the faster it began to override the programming I set for it. It should be _destroyed_.”

“Missy, it is the greatest repository of knowledge in the universe...”

“And it is evil.” Missy replied, firmly. “You have spent our whole lives trying to teach me right from wrong and even I can see that this is wrong. I was going to tell you – that afternoon in the graveyard. I thought perhaps we could return to Gallifrey together and – well… It didn’t end that way but that, Doctor, is why you needed an army. Not for random wars plucked from nowhere but to end the evil at the centre of our civilisation.”

“There’s more that you’re not telling me.” He _knew_ Missy. She wasn’t that altruistic despite what she pretended.

Missy’s hands slipped off his shoulders. She did not want to share the rest.

“Missy… If you want me to trust you, you have to start being honest.”

“It doesn’t work like that, Doctor. Truth has consequences.” And this one would shake his whole word.

“Missy!” He took her upper arm firmly and dragged her back. His fingers bit into her flesh. “Tell me.”

This had  _nothing_ to do with Bill and  _everything_ to do with the cracks between them. “ Later-”

“No. Now.” He insisted. “We’ve got _days_ left to live – if we’re lucky. Please, just for once, tell me what you’re thinking.  You know – maybe I might actually be on your side for once if you did. You’re always giving me half-truths, whispers and a wash of intrigue and I can’t make it out.”

She  _didn’t_ like the way he had her by the arm. It was too much like those early centuries which she’d rather forget.  They’d been too rough with each other then. “Let me go, Theta.”

Her soft instruction loosened his hold and Missy slipped free. He thought that she might flee the scene but she didn’t. Instead, Missy paced, back and forth, considering her words carefully. Whatever it was she’d not shared it with anyone. All of it boiled down to a deceptively short knife that went straight to his heart.

“She was there.”

*~*~*

Swearing sank with the mist. It was thick around his knees this far into the wood, hiding the ground from view resulting in several unflattering stumbles. The Master hissed as he nearly went over again and extracted his foot from another ditch.

“Anything?” Nardole asked, perched on a boulder nearby.

“Fuck all.”

“Language...” Nardole muttered under his breath and marked off another quadrant. The lifts were impossible to find. It was like fishing without being able to find the river. “We’re going to have to think of something else.” He added. “There’s no way we have time to search this place by hand.”

The Master paused and set his hands on his hips. He was sweaty. Muddy. Unhappy and decidedly cranky. “ It should have been easier than this.” He hissed. “Did you manage to work out how long it will take to evacuate all the children through the lifts – if we manage to find them, of course?”

“Four hours – give or take. At least.”

“That is a _long_ time when there’s a Cyber army in play.”

“A fool’s chance in hell.” That was better than no chance though.

“Well – that’s going to suck.” The Master added, making his way back to Nardole. He didn’t care either way. He intended to be long gone by then. Missy had the answer to his little transport problem – he knew it. She was just dragging him out so that he’d be useful. He could live with that so long as she held up her end of the bargain. “What’s the matter with you?” He added, when he found Nardole fixated on the forest behind him.

“Get. Down.”

He did so without hesitation – throwing himself into the mist where he vanished entirely from view. Nardole rolled off the rock into the same white soup just as an energy blast ripped through the air and tore a sizeable hole in the tree behind.

*~*~*

T he Doctor’s hand was shaking. Missy edged forward and took it  but he barely responded to her touch.

“My little girl,” Missy continued, struggling to swallow. “They keep her in there like a pet.”

“You – you really were going back to Gallifrey...” It was not some idle threat of hers. Missy’s intention had been to drag him along with her, an army in tow. He’d worried that she was _crazy_ that afternoon in the graveyard but now he knew for certain that she was _mad_. “It’ll never work, Missy. It’s impossible.”

“I have to try.” She squeezed his hand harder. “I’ll not leave her in some restless torment!”

“And all this time in the vault you were what – biding your time until an opportunity arose to escape? Is _that_ it?”

“It was more than that and you know it.” She hissed, then came back at him again. “At least I can admit that it happened.” Missy added, feeling the tears start. There was no hope to stem them. “All this time. How many thousands of years… You never even say her name.”

She was crying but he was paralysed.  He envied her emotion. It ran from her like rivers but his met flood gates that churned  the waters up inside him  until they became a storm. His stony façade was a symptom of his personal hell where all the shadows of his past screamed at each  other.  He’d  _seen_ Missy’s child die. He’d heard  Missy’s shrieks cut through the night and  _never_ had he heard such a thing since.

T hat night was the cataclysm that tore them violently apart –  tossed the pieces  of their friendship to the wind in such a way he doubted they’d ever be able to pick them up again. Not properly.

Silence. That’s all Missy ever got from him. Her other hand grabbed his lapel as she demanded. “Say it! Her name!”

But the Doctor could not. It refused to be drawn from the abyss inside his soul. He’d locked it away where it could never be found.

“Say it!” She screamed at him, slamming that same fist into his chest so hard one of his hearts stumbled. “You – you can’t...” Missy realised, releasing him to withdraw a few feet. _Same Theta._ Nothing then and nothing now. “Do you even remember her?” Her words struggled out. There could have been moments between that night and this day. Acceptance was hard. It had sent her spiralling into innumerable years of violence and misery but surely it was better than holding it inside. Like a poison, it would kill him.

“Of course I remember.” He finally replied.

Missy had to turn away from him to regain some composure. The tears she could do nothing about but her breathing wracked against her throat, trying to choke her in sobs. Finally, she found the courage to face him and tell him what he needed to hear.

Less than a foot  between them , Missy stared straight into his eyes. “She was  _ours_ and she was precious and they killed her.”

There was nowhere for him to run from the truth. He was caught between a barn wall and Missy’s tears. Mascara lay as dark, uneven tracks down her cheeks which dripped onto her jacket. The Doctor could not breathe at all. Their child had been their whole world. Her murder shattered everything.  He didn’t say her name because he was soul-shakenly terrified of what he might do if he allowed those emotions to bubble at the surface. If Missy burned whole worlds to heal her heart then he’d tear down the stars.

For Missy – it was unbearable. She’d allowed him to be selfish for so many years and now, when she’d done  _everything_ to bring their lives back together he couldn’t even say  their daughter’s name let alone admit what happened.

“I’ll take your rage.” Missy became increasingly vocal. “Scream up a storm – throw me on the floor – tear apart reality – do what you will but _do not_ give me silence.”  Her raised hand shook in earnest. “I cannot bear it. One parent cannot grieve for both. They can’t. _I can’t_. ”

A nd still he stood there. He wasn’t ready. Missy could see that.

“Theta – _Theta_...” She softened and closed the distance between them. Her hands fell to his chest and she gently laid her head beside them. Normally he’d move to hold her but his arms remained at his side. This was why they never got anywhere. If they never dealt with this then there was no possible future. If she could just help him see… To remember.

She was in his head before he could stop her. Long, crimson grass brushed around him and the barn faded into a stretch of pastel sky. Immediately he tried to buck against her – to push her off and out of his head but she gripped on hard and forced the memory on him.

_And there she was_ , wild red hair and bright green eyes, bobbing through the grass toward him. So real. Utterly perfect.

“No – _no!_ ” The Doctor thrashed against the pain. He shoved Missy so hard that she stumbled and fell to the floor, breaking the image. “Get _out!_ ” He shouted unkindly.

Missy scrambled to her feet and braced herself. “Don’t do this again...” She begged.

“You have _no right_ to show me that.”

“I have to live with it!” She hissed back. Missy went for him again but the Doctor caught both her wrists and held her at bay. “Why...” Her whisper was half desperate.

His resolve cracked for a moment and he allowed her into his arms. She held on fiercely – her face against his neck where he felt the tears running along his skin. When she sobbed he broke, just for a moment, and wrapped his arms around her. How was it that they could hold an immensity of love, resentment and fury in one embrace? Why did he want to throw her into the abyss and never let her from his arms again?

Missy’s knees went a little and it was his firm arms that kept her standing. She tried one last time – sending the Doctor careening back into the memory before he had the chance to protest. It was the most precious memory in Missy’s mind. The one she kept safe. Theta – kneeling in the grass as he bundled their daughter up into his arms. Missy knew that he’d be able to feel the weight of her in his embrace – smell her hair and feel her warmth.

His rejection was a screech of pain. The Doctor threw her off him again and raised his hand in warning. How dare she pick apart his soul like that. It was too much. He couldn’t… “Get out Missy or I swear I will throw you out into the mud.”

He was absolutely ruined. Missy could see that but  _tough_ so was she.

She reached up  and wiped her face against her hands. She looked as though she’d been caught in the rain for all the tears. He was a disappointment. Endlessly so. “If I was  _ever_ mad,” her voice trembled, “it was for wanting you. To contradict  _all_ reason – all self interest for the sake of a smile.” They’d told her from the start and she should have listened but you could not choose who you loved.  E ven now she loved him desperately. “To hang on a rope as sweet as kisses and swing through passion and scaffold.” The Gallifreyan tumbled from her lips and made the air around them shake. “There, dear, the madness builds – to death and ecstasy.”

He’d said  _nothing_ in return and so she reeled on him again – louder. The language of their childhood raged across the barn. “Such  _cheap_ fantasy!” Missy hated herself for the  weakness – then and now. She was making the very same mistakes over with him. “Foolish indulgence of mindless whims set aside in youth  _with good cause!_ ” How had she ever forgotten what ended them in the first place? “You  _do not_ love me.” She levelled her final blow.  The truth of it was sufficient to tear her hearts apart. “You do not  _understand_ love.”

The last line was so soft it was barely a breath. Missy shook her head. There was no point. He’d never be able to feel like she needed him to.

“Missy...” His voice shifted into something entirely different. His gaze stared right past – over her shoulder.

Missy frowned.  Set off balance by his jarring tone. Then she realised that the barn around them had grown quiet. There was no steady electronic  _beep_ on the air. She spun around and saw what he had. A Cyberman – lined up with them, its head tilted down. “Bill?” She asked, softly.

The Doctor heard it first – the build of energy fuelled by emotion. Bill must have been influenced by their argument as she woke up and had been born into the world angry and confused. A faint glow started at the top of the head piece and he knew all too well what was coming. Missy hadn’t moved. She was transfixed by the terrible truth of her own actions. Bill – her creation – no longer a hope laying on a barn floor but an actual machine. She’d lifted her hands as if to plead with her.

“Missy _no!_ ” The Doctor threw himself forwards. He knocked her body with his full weight as the energy beam ripped across the barn. It caught an oil lamp in the process and shattered it in a violent explosion like a dying star while the Doctor and Missy hit the ground hard. He was draped over her, every limb protecting her from the rush of heat and light that followed. He closed his eyes while Missy screamed.

A s soon as the weapon discharged, the Doctor tried to scramble to his feet but the second he was upright his legs crumbled and a searing pain ripped above his hip. He looked down to find a large shard of glass from the lamp buried in his flesh. His shirt already a bloody mess.  His head fell back in a sharp groan of pain.

Missy rolled over and took one look at him before launching herself across the room toward Bill. An enraged, upset, brand new Cyberman was the worst possible thing to have loose in the world. She dived away from a second blast and managed to wrap her arms around the steel body. The Cyberman tried to shake her off but Missy clung on through the panicked, muffled shouts coming from the Doctor until she wrapped her hand around the pressure point of this model’s soft neck. She squeezed hard. An odd, electronic gurgle rang out. Its arms flailed wildly. Then it fell – taking Missy with it.

Missy pushed herself off the silent Cyberman. It was a neat trick she’d learned a long time ago – probably here but she couldn’t exactly remember. “Doctor...” she breathed, turning back to find him falling from his knees to the floor with a muffled cry.

Farmers who’d heard the explosion were already at the door – covering the flames that had popped up in the barn. The only thing Missy cared about was the Doctor crumbling forward in her arms. Their previous fury forgotten. “You idiot – why did you go and do that?” She scorned him, helping him lay back on the ground.

His hands gripped at her while he looked down at the nasty wound. “It was going to kill you...” He replied.

“Bill woke up in a bad mood – that’s all.” She replied, easing him all the way down when he tried to arch up. “I put her to sleep for a little while. Maybe next time will be better.” Particularly if they’re not arguing over her body. “Let me look – stop it!” She added, when he tried to bat her hand away. “We need to get you inside...”

Missy heard the distinct  _clink_ of a rifle cocking.

“No – no – no!” She raised her hands at the farmers, as several of them levelled weapons toward Bill’s sleeping body. “You mustn’t. Please.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it's a little on the short side but it's a very difficult time for me right now. These updates will come through on the weekend instead of daily. :*(

The Doctor’s blood ran down her open palm, trickled onto her wrist and dripped into the remnants of hay at her knees. By the time it slipped between the dried blades of straw it was cold. When had he become so fragile, she wondered, so _human_? He’d never been breakable in her eyes and yet here he lay at her feet – one step away from the edge of all things.  She was not about to let him fall. They were lashed together. Whatever cliff he rolled over she’d follow a breath behind.

“Please...” She implored the frightened farmers. Their guns were unsteady, trembling from barrel to trigger so much so that she feared their aim as much as their intent. “This is an accident. Look at it...” Missy nodded at Bill’s motionless tin body. “I’ve put it back to sleep. The metal creature. There’s no danger.”

The guns were dropping steadily  but their eyes remained wide. Missy knew all about faces like theirs.  Fear was quick to stir and once awoken, near impossible to still until the cause was removed. Well, they could not do that. Bill had to stay and so the best she could offer the farmers was a parley.

“That’s it...” Missy cooed at them. “I need your help.” She added, in a distraction as much as anything else. “The Doctor’s hurt.” Missy brandished the Doctor’s blood at them. “Please...” She repeated, mewing at their basic human empathy.

A sickening gurgle welled up from the Doctor’s throat. He rolled suddenly to the side, convulsed and coughed black tides of blood over the floor. Missy laid a hand on his shoulder. That was not a good sign. When he stilled she bent over and rubbed his back softly with her free hand then whispered something comforting against his ear. He clutched at her skirts and her heart forgave him again – treacherous organ that it was.

* ~*~*

His entire world had been reduced to his breath against the leaf litter. It sent the closest layers of mist swirling. So casual. Calm. Like incense through temple windows. The Master peered into the grey expanse, seeking out the awkward shadow of the approaching Cyberman.  _Metal_ . He could hear its joints crunching with every step. An early model – too heavy and stiff but  _much_ harder to kill than its sock-headed friends.

Nardole was making an appalling racket. It was not entirely his fault. He’d been encumbered with a cheap-street knock off body picked out of the spare parts bin by an entirely soulless Theta who could, with a bit of care,  have  manage d something better for a friend.  That didn’t change the fact that Nardole was going to get them both killed if he didn’t stop bloody writhing about.

The  hell of hydraulic pistons hissed closer. Hesitant to draw attention, the Master pressed his body off the ground just enough to  clip his head above the fog.

_Mistake._

Catastrophic error!

He dropped and rolled manically to his left – over and over and over until the explosion struck the spot he’d been hiding and the roar of electrical fire burned off the fog.  The complete vaporisation of his cover left the Master startled on his back, facing the canopy of swaying pines. They scratched against each other, taken by the wind. Enormous, slender spectators to the horror show. Their indifference was replaced by a silver mask with tear-cut eyes.

The Cyberman lowered his arm and attached weapon, squaring it off against the Master’s frozen expression.

“Oy – you there – shiny bugger!” Nardole’s insult cut through the air.

The Cyberman turned at the last minute and fired off a bolt of mayhem in Nardole’s direction. The Master pushed himself off the ground and high tailed it to the nearest thick  trunk , hiding himself behind it knowing full well that the bark made a useless shield against everything except detection.

_They had to kill it._ He knew that much. There was no way to outrun a Cyberman once they had their  clockwork heart set on the chase. They were  _marked_ and that was seriously inconvenient.

“You alive?!” The Master shouted through the mist.

“Yep. You?”

The Master frowned. _Surely that was fucking evident._ He leaned around the tree and saw the Cyberman stomp out from a fresh cloud of fire and ash. It was learning the environment. Being born in a destitute city, the trees and uneven ground had it at a disadvantage. They needed to use that fast before it figured its shit out.

*~*~*

H azran covered her mouth in shock as the farmers carried the Doctor through the house, trailed by Missy who was herself  a mess of  dark blood, none of it hers.

“Keep everyone out of the barn!” Missy snapped, without stopping.

All Hazran could do in that moment was nod and obey. The edge of war was no time for objections  and who would dare stand against a Time Lord caught in the shards of despair?

They laid the Doctor on the rug in front of the fire place in his room. He groaned as his body was set down. Missy was on the farmers at once, demanding medical equipment which they immediately left to get. She turned on her friend and stared at his crumpled form on the floor. The firelight stuttered an uneven glow over him. _You idiot!_ She thought. He might very well have just gotten himself killed.

She took a folded blanket from the edge of the bed and brought it down to him. Carefully, she picked the Doctor’s head up and slid the blanket underneath as a sort of pillow.

“Argh – Missy!” His wild hair was brushed from his forehead by one of her hands as he grimaced.

“We’ve not even started yet.”

“I’m not sure there’s much point...” He looked up at her. The little colour he had was draining away fast. His warmth, which she claimed to crave, was cooling as death crept up. He dragged his mind through the trenches of human poetry. It was a pit of endless wallowing of what lurked beyond the veil of life. Even Time Lords faced the final blow but they did not write verse about it. They barely acknowledged the possibility of a calm after the storm of existence. Contrary to his culture, the Doctor welcomed the gaps between the stars. The natural order of things was not a concept to fear but he did worry leaving Missy to wash up inside the universe alone.

“Don’t be ridiculous. There’s _always_ a point.” Missy berated him. “ If you think I’m about to let you die because we had an argument, you’re dead wrong.” Well – not _dead_. Alive and wrong. The only way the Doctor was going to die was if she killed him herself. That was the agreement  when you created a nemesis. “I need to take this off.” She added, slipping the buttons on his charcoal jacket.

Missy had to wrap one of her arms around his shoulders in order to coax him off the ground enough to wrestled the jacket from his shoulders. It hurt – she could tell, if by nothing else than the thick stream of blood that emerged around the shard of glass and soaked through the rest of his shirt.

“I think I might have really done it this time...” The Doctor admitted, in a stagger between pained breaths.

Missy tossed the  pathetic excuse for a coat behind her  He was lucky she didn’t toss it in the fire . “ A little positivity would go a long way,” she replied, making a show of annoyance. “I’m the one who’ s been left with the hard job of patching you up – again,  I might add. When you offered to take me to the stars you never said anything about being your nurse.  Or was that your plan all along? Free medical and a bit of a cheeky snog on the side... ”

T he farmers were back and Missy  coerced them  into set ting everything around her then shooed them out of the room. There was nothing more anyone could do. She was arguably the best surgeon among them and that wasn’t exactly a promising thought.

“Drink this.” Missy lifted a glass to his lips full of ochre liquor.

He riled against it. “I’m not drinking that.”

She was firm. “You’ll do as you’re damn well told!”

It burned his lips and scorched his throat. She made him drink so much of it that he could feel the hum of drunkenness before the glass was drained. When he was done she took it away but not without pressing the most fleeting of kisses to his lips which he knew were stained with alcohol and blood. It did not faze her in the slightest.  _She loved him._ It was unconditional and he’d never felt that more than when he knew he did not deserve it.

“Missy...” he breathed softly.

“Later.” She replied firmly. Missy recognised his regret but it was going to take more than a few words of whispered apology choked through blood to earn it from her. What happened in the barn _happened_.

The buttons on his shirt were next. Missy undid them all and then eased one side of the fabric open. The other was caught around the protrusion of glass. With great care, she navigated the sodden material over the smooth surface, lifting it as he kept as still as possible. Even the lightest offence against the crystal created a choked moan. When it was free, Missy undid the buttons on her own sleeves and pushed them right up her forearms.

Now she had a good look at the wound. The shard of glass was roughly half the oil lamp’s dome. It was curved and jagged which meant she couldn’t pull it straight out either.  Oil mixed with his blood and from the quality of the glass she feared it might splinter at the lightest touch.

“How bad is it – really?” The Doctor asked. His voice was oddly soft, mellowed by the loss of blood and addition of booze.

His blood ran black and Missy doubted she could conceal the fear in her eyes as she replied. “It’s not great.” She settled on.  Missy unscrewed another bottle – this one containing a clear, potent alcohol used for medical purposes only. She sipped it anyway and nearly choked on its hellish contents.

“ _Fuck_ , Missy… That shit will kill you.”

“You’ve got to work up to it, that’s all.” Missy insisted. “Now, you’re not going to scream, are you?”

The Doctor swallowed  _hard_ at the question. Their eyes locked as she  braced her left hand on the centre of his chest. Spread her fingers. Curved them until the edges of her nails dug in. That was his anchor – to stop him lurching forward.  She took the glass between her thumb and forefinger of her other hand,  wrestled for a grip.

_Clean_ . Missy kept saying to herself.  _Follow the curve._ She slowed her breathing. Steadied her hand. “ Trust you to get attacked by a lamp.” Missy muttered.

“A gentle hint at a lack of enlightenment?”

Even dying he had a sense of humour. “The universe is rarely subtle, dear.”

“Arrgh!”

Missy had used his distraction as a  sneaky  cover to drag the glass out  in one go . She pressed firmly at his chest, holding him down. His hearts  raced unevenly under her hand and that only served to push the blood faster from the wound,  dislodging a few fragments of glass . “Stop. Moving.” She instructed sharply. Missy needed both hands.  His blood welled in the rivets of his muscles forming tiny scarlet lakes.

It was very difficult to comply with her demand as she poured the clear alcohol right over the wound. He may as well have walked through a burning building. Through the haze of pain he could hear her whispering  but his mind would not focus long enough to define the words. Then he realised why. Darkness. It edged out the light from the fire. Pushed away the warmth of the flames and dulled the screech of pain in his flesh. The sound went first. Muffled into silence. Then everything faded.

Missy was relieved when he passed out. His limp corpse was far easier to manhandle.  To that end, she did what she could. This body of his was wearing out fast and even as she stitched him up the glow of time energy rustled to the wound,  looking for an escape . Ordinarily this would heal a Time Lord but not in his case. He’d never heal from anything in this state.

As she was finishing Missy felt  a twitch of fabric  near her knee .  Missy glanced down to see the Doctor with his hand in her skirt, tugging lightly to alert her to his consciousness.  He stared in silent reverence, through what must be the last of the pain. He was somewhere else with her in his mind.  Or if he was there, in the present, it was under some fanciful illusion that this scene had a happy ending.

H e’d looked at her like that before.  Like she was his  _everything._

“Back with us then?” She asked, dragging one of the last stitches through.

“How long was I out?”

“Not long. Ten minutes.” Now the final stitch then another coat of alcohol which made him hiss sharply. The bandages were draped across and pinned. “You look like a patchwork quilt. Then there’s this one-” Missy touched his covered palm only to receive an unexpected sharp snap of energy that cracked through the room like thunder and physically threw her backwards. She landed hard, pushed up against the leather chair.

“Missy!” He exclaimed, but could not move.

“Fine – fine...” Missy shuffled back over the floor, shaking her hand. It was like a nasty electric shock that left the air smelling of Nitrogen. “You know as well as I do, Doctor, that if it’s doing _that_ you won’t be able to hold back the regeneration for much longer. You are losing control. You could become _anything_ if you’re not careful – or nothing at all. It’s not unheard of for narcissist ic Time Lords to explode rather spectacularly on account of their vanity.”

“Are you actually worried, Missy? Is that genuine concern...”

Considering she’d just gone out of her way to save him and was still in the process of wiping  his blood from her hands, that sentiment was astounding. It was not time to rile with him though. He’d not survive it.  Missy inspected her hand. There was a raw burn across the side of her fingers where the time energy had lashed out. It hurt like shit but she was not about to let him see. “You need to stay still for a little while – let all that settle then I’ll move you to the bed. Do you understand? Under no circumstances are you to leave this rug.”

“To be perfectly honest with you, Missy.”

“That would be a prize thing.”

“I couldn’t move if I wanted to.”

She shook her head sadly. If they were going to die on this miserable excuse for a ship, let it be standing. Missy wasn’t sure she could face the end if he was going to lie there and wait for the wash of finality. Her hand pressed on his shoulder where she smoothed her thumb over the gentle curve of bone. He had beautiful joints. An odd thing, perhaps but the mechanics of his body were elegantly strung together as if he’d willed them from an antiquities museum. He was one of the marble statues given life.

That was a constant for her. Missy had _always_ found him unforgivably beautiful. He appealed to her artistic overtures and aesthetic indulgence – as though he were crafted to corrupt her. Even after all that was said she’d have him now if not for his fragile hold on life.

“Do not die.” Missy insisted – a firm order. She leaned down and kissed the side of his jaw. _“I mean that. Don’t bloody die.”_

The Doctor rolled his head slightly towards hers. They were in far too deep with each other. That  much was crystal clear. If they really  _did_ face each other honestly only two things could happen and they  _both_ spelled disaster.

* ~*~*

“Bill woke up.” Missy explained, before Hazran could launch the assault she’d been itching to spew for more than an hour. “But what happened – it wasn’t – well not entirely at least – her fault.”

“The Doctor and I had an agreement.” Hazran was oddly cold. “He _promised_ me that the machine in that farm was safe. Clearly  it is not!”

“She is-”

“Half the door is missing!” Hazran yelled down the Time Lord. “They’re up there fixing it now!”

Missy found herself shrinking away from the enraged creature. The human was only trying to protect the children. Her anger was rooted in love and she could understand that. “Look...” said Missy, more quietly this time. “I swear to you, if nothing changes the next time Bill wakes up then we’ll do this your way. One more go. Don’t make an agreement with the Doctor – make it with me. Unlike him I will hold up my end of the deal.” Though Missy had to accept that the offer was ingenerous. They were bargaining for extra hours of life in a world that had days to live.

Hazran eyed the other woman for a long time, searching for the honesty in that promise which she was surprised to find. “One more chance.” Hazran agreed. “But then I’ll burn the whole barn down if I have to. There’ll be nothing left of her but ash.”

“I know...” Missy flinched. “Do you hear that?”

“Nardole and your other you are testing again. Nothing to worry about.”

Missy nodded. “I need to stay with the Doctor for a while.” Missy added. “He’ll do something stupid if I leave him there long enough on his own. Do you know what to do?”

Hazran nodded. “Keep filling sandbags and boarding windows.”

“Aye. And you’ve been down through the passage I showed you?”

“I left lanterns in there as you asked but I don’t see what good they’ll be if we can’t find the lifts.”

“At worst you can hide in them.” Missy offered. “Cybermen might be highly advanced augmented humans but they’re blind as a mouse that’s lost both its wee eyes. I think that’s how the nursery goes.” Though it was an Earth nursery rhyme anyway whose reference had confused Hazran entirely. “Never mind that now. Back into the breach, as they say.”

*~*~*

The Master reached around one of the trees and fired off a shot from his laser screwdriver. There was a blast in reply  that tore apart the undergrowth but with no second surge of fire, he knew he’d missed the Cyberman.

“Where is it?” The Master growled at Nardole, who was hiding behind a boulder on his right.

“Can’t see it at the moment.”

“Much help you are.”

“Maybe he went back into one of them lifts.” Nardole pointed out. “You know – thought we were a bit too troublesome.”

The Master pressed his forehead against the tree if only to stop his brain from seeping out. “Cybermen don’t work like that.”  He replied, as calmly as he could manage  without losing the will to live . “ They’re machines performing missions. They don’t have opinions regarding effort and expenditure.”

Another explosion – right next to his face. The Master snapped his head back so fast he stumbled and landed on his arse again. The Cyberman definitely hadn’t retreated  and there was a startled Nardole-sounding shriek accompanying  the blast . He didn’t have time to investigate. The Cyberman was stomping through the undergrowth, arm raised, firing off rounds at random. It was learning.

“I see you, you bastard.” The Master ducked behind a rock and crawled until he was side on to the robot. It was focused on Nardole’s panicked noises and didn’t see the Master line his screwdriver up with its shiny head. “Bye bye _you fucking_ waste of my afternoon.” He said, before a stream of violent light ripped out of his screwdriver and tore the Cyberman’s head in two. Its body sank to the ground – a steaming mess and crumbled into ruin.

The Master gave himself a curt nod of satisfaction.

“Oh, my word!” Nardole’s little startled cry continued.

It took a while for the Master to find him – well,  _most of him_ , sheltering behind a boulder. “Don’t panic.” He raised his hands in an attempt to calm the android.

“This isn’t panic. This is _calm_!” Nardole all but screeched. He looked down at his shoulder and the missing arm. It was a rather harsh reminder that he was a product of parts rather than a human. Mind you if he was a human he’d be dead with a missing arm but _still_ it was disconcerting and he didn’t like it!

“Did you see where it went?” The Master asked, hunting around nearby.

“No – I was busy screaming.”

“All right – all right. Calm your fucking tits, we’ll find your arm.” It wasn’t like it could have gone far. It wasn’t crawling about or anything. The Master sat down and lowered himself along a steep embankment where Nardole’s limb lay at the bottom, covered in mud but otherwise intact. He retrieved it and scrambled up to a rather pale looking android. “See – nothing to bloody worry about.”

“There damn well is.” Nardole replied, snatching his arm back and reattaching it. “Did you see that thing? It’s come along way on the evolutionary tree. We better find those lifts and _fast_ because when they come we’re going to stand even less of a chance than I thought we would.”

“I had an idea bout that too.” The Master replied, grabbing Nardole by the scruff of his coat until he was on his feet. “But Missy’s not going to like it.”

*~*~*

“Nope. That’s exactly what I told you _not_ to do!” Missy roused, as she re-entered the Doctor’s bedroom. Instead of laying flat on his back on the rug as she’d instructed, she found him sitting in the damn chair. “You’ll tear all your stitches pay no mind to the bleeding.”  For a Doctor he really had no medical sense whatsoever!

He  dipped his head into his hands with a groan. “I felt like I was suffocating.”

She shook her head in utter contempt. “What’s the point of saving you if you  insist on go  on like this ?”

“Missy – I’m _fine._ ” The Doctor replied, catching her hand as she moved past him. It dragged her to a reluctant stop. Her clothes were ruined by his blood – as if his mistakes were writ on her. “There’s no point fussing over me.”

“You don’t actually get a say...” She reminded him, untangling herself from his grip. Missy continued to the bed which she cleared of books, stacking them neatly on the floor. It was still a tumble of chaos from last night’s pleasure and she could barely look at it without a stab of regret – not for their passion but for what followed in the barn. _Why did they do that?_ She wondered. Why couldn’t they pretend just a little longer that everything was fine...

“Do you ever think about them?”

“Who?” Missy asked, as she retrieved the pillows and folded the sheets into something that he could lie on.

“All those trillions that never stir beyond the veil of potential sleep – unwoken – through eternity… The unborn. The fragments of genetic code.”

Her hands stilled a moment. She remembered these discussions from their youth. What was he doing wandering back through such things? “You really  _must_ be dying  to drag that up .” She  observed quietly, only partly in jest. “ And  _no._ As I told you then, I think  only of those that made it as far as life. The rest are beyond reach as you will soon discover if you don’t lie down.”

M issy turned, both hands on her hips as she eyed his broken form folded awkwardly into the chair.  Actually, she knew exactly why his thoughts had landed there. That was the day they’d first met behind the shelves in the library. They’d argued – of course – and ended her perfectly eloquent  point with a crash of lips.

“You look every one of your two thousand years today...” Missy added quietly.

“And you, none of your _three_ thousand,” he replied, causing a blush to run against her cheeks.

“Flirt all you want, I’m still coming to move you out of that chair.”

It was a task that she managed but not without some harsh words from his lips. When he was finally horizontal on the bed, Missy tucked the sheets around him in a makeshift wall to stop him rolling onto his side. The light from the window cut across his body. She knelt beside the bed, leaned over it with her elbows pressed into the mattress and cupped his cheek tenderly.

“Should have been me.” Missy said. “Bill was after revenge, not you and I’ve had deserved it.”

The Doctor lifted his hand to grasp lightly at her wrist. His thumb trailed over the collection of veins at the base of her palm and the pair of heart beats echoed there. “ Regardless. I’d still have done it.” He whispered.

“What’s wrong with us?” She asked, hopelessly. Missy’s head sank to the sheets leaving her folded over the bed with only a wash of hair of left for the Doctor to run his hand through.

They stayed like that for a long time. Him, staring at the ceiling and Missy face-down at his side. His hand rested on the back of her head, stroking her softly as she liked.

Then – without warning – he whispered a Gallifreyan name onto the air.

Missy choked back a sob. Lifted her head. Found him staring at her tear-stained face.

“We named her after the morning light,” he added. Their daughter never had a name suitable for human ears so he repeated it in Gallifreyan and watched as moon-sized tears tracked down Missy’s face. He was an idiot. He’d left her to carry the weight of grief and cursed her for the destruction it caused.

“We-we did...” She found the strength to nod. “Because she was born with the light.” Born – not woven. Not engineered. Like all things in their lives, Missy and the Doctor had let fate and chaos craft their child and loved her all the more for it.

“Koschei – I have to know… Was it _all_ a mistake?”

Missy shook her head as the tears hit the bedding. “Of course not.” She assured him. “She was everything that was ever good between us.”

The Doctor could not lift his head or move at all so he tangled his hand in the back of her hair and guided her down toward him. Missy fell willingly toward his lips and when he kissed her it was like kissing darkness itself.


	21. Chapter 21

The softest moan escaped her lips and Missy found that she pulled back first. Her tears had fallen on  the Doctor’s cheeks – congregating in silver pools against  h is bones . She wiped them off with a brush of her thumb. “Was that your apology?” She asked,  trying desperately not to fall into those  pale  eyes. She often wondered how he kept them through his regenerations. The same eyes with the ir sad  overtures . It’s how she recognised him.

His fingers curled in a stray length of her hair. It was dark now, like so much else between them but there were a few strands of gold nestled in there. They were like the fragments of his memory. He was jealous that she could take herself back into the throes of history and revel in the intensity of a world long killed. He should have lingered longer in her dreams.

Missy took up his entire vision.  H e was sure that he could see the skies of Gallifrey  reflected in her  face . She carried  those mournful horizons with her, preserved with all the other memories of their life.  _He wanted it back._

“No.” He replied. “You are owed more of an apology than that – one which I cannot summon here.”

“Then you will have to live,” she reasoned.

The Doctor dragged her down again, colliding against her lips with and open mouth hungry for her forgiveness. Missy melted toward him, sliding her tongue along his until they pushed against each other. They both tasted of alcohol and she could tell it had clouded his inhibitions. Had he not been striken near death…

“No...” Missy drew away reluctantly. She licked him from her lips. “Rest – don’t make me beg. Bill will wake again tomorrow and she will need your stupid face.”

She was right and he hated the selfish impulse that rose within him. He’d run away if he could. It was his greatest flaw – the urge to flee. “Will you come back here later and...”

“Stay the night?” Missy finished softly, nudging his nose with hers. “So long as you behave.”

*~*~*

“I thought you might be needing these.” Hazran waited outside the Doctor’s door and offered up the pile of clothes, averting her eyes from the long, dark patches that stained Missy’s current attire. The Doctor’s blood looked like spilled ink where it dotted in wild patterns. It was all getting too real. The cracks weren’t just appearing, they’d split right apart. When immortals bled you were truly at the end of time.

Missy took the offered clothes with a nod of thanks and pressed them against her chest. What she really wanted was another flask of that god-awful spirit to burn a hole right through her soul.

“I wanted you to know that I’ve buried a lot of men in those fields.”

“I imagine you have.” Missy replied. She had a fair understanding of the darker side this farm hid under the smiles of babes. “It’s the children, you see – there are too many of them.” Missy explained. “Simple mathematics. You’re missing people – quite a lot. When did it happen?”

“A year back.” Hazran did not know why she answered Missy’s questions without reservation. It was almost involuntary and on that unsettling revelation they headed down the corridor together. Light streamed through every window, carrying on with its cheer. There hadn’t been any rain for a while. “Usually the steel monsters come one at a time – three at the most.” She continued. “That day was different. We heard them shifting about beneath our feet. A – a rumbling I guess. Then they came out of the forest in a line. We counted nine in the end but at the time all we saw in the darkness was a line of steel. The strongest of us went at them with rifles, hoes, barn shovels – whatever we could find.

“They were different to the others. Stronger… They killed the first wave of us before we could get a shot off. My friends – family – they fell as wrecks in the darkness. The rest are as you see. There was almost nothing worth burying left.”

Missy felt the dead beneath her feet as soon as they’d arrived. She always had a sense for it – one that drew and repulsed in equal measure. Where the Doctor saw a troop of humans, strong and surviving on the frontier, Missy grasped the reality of a last stand waiting to meet the dirt.

“I swore I’d never bring a child into this pit of hell.” Hazran finished. There was a great deal of regret and pride at her decision. It was the same sentiment that kept Missy as a man through all her subsequent regenerations. She’d never take the risk again. “That’s why none of these are mine. Poor things. What kind of a world is this?”

“The same world as everywhere else.” Missy paused, setting a serious look at the human. “Though most of us do not feel the lid closing quite as firmly as now, the entire universe is a collection of closing doors and roaring flame. Every planet will burn and every star will flicker to darkness.”

Hazran was left confused. “So – what… There’s no point to life even trying?”

“The reverse.” Missy insisted. “Life has always been the candle flickering against the winds of chaos.” She simply could not bring herself to partake.

Hazran was left alone in the corridor thinking of the children she never had.

*~*~*

“Oh _come on_!” Missy complained bitterly, when she found the Master in her room laying on her bed as though he were entitled. “You have a room. Why are you always in mine?”

“Because, dearest, I was looking for you.”

“Now is not convenient.” Missy replied, closing the door.

The Master swept his eyes over the state of her. “I can see that. Did you finally snap and murder him? Not that I blame you – was going to do it myself but I guess you get to call dibs all things considered.”

“I’m not in the mood to talk about it.” Missy set her fresh clothes on the floor beside the bath and turned the water on. She waited to see if he’d have the decency to leave – he didn’t so she started unbuttoning her blouse. What did it matter? They’d crossed every line there was to cross. “Whatever it is, can you get it over with, please? I’d like to be alone.”

The Master kicked his feet into the air and used the momentum to roll off the bed. He padded over to her – his socks silent against the floorboards. He must have been in the room for some time because in his boredom he’d lit all the lamps. Missy eyed them with an air of suspicion considering she’d spent an hour digging one out of the Doctor. She was considerably less fond of them now.

Missy startled when the Master laid his hands on her shoulders. “Remember what we agreed.” She warned him firmly.

“I know what we agreed,” he replied, but all he did was tug her back half a foot to rest against his chest. Missy faced away from him, staring down at the water rushing into the bath while he dropped one of his arms, draping it around her waist. “He’s not good for us.” The Master murmured against her neck. His short beard scratched her delicate skin above the vein. “I wish you could see that.”

“You’re wrong.” She countered, but made no attempt to leave his oddly genuine embrace. It was self preservation – self pity even but whatever his motivation it was nice to be held.

Was it heavy-handed irony that one of the only selfless moments the Master had instigated in this face was an action he did for himself? Probably. The universe had given up keeping moral score on the cataclysm that was his life. “It’s’ sadistic.” He continued, in a whisper. “We fell in love with a mongrel. Now we’re surprised at the flees.”

Missy closed her eyes, not wishing to think about _any of that_ right now. It was only a distraction from the much larger problem. “He’s _dying_.”

“Good. Serves him bloody right.” _He didn’t mean that._ She went to pull away from his callous reply but the Master tightened his grip around her waist. “Just because you are fond of that face does not make me wrong.” He added. When the Master considered death he did not see it as an absolute. It was a joke. A wardrobe malfunction that was probably rooted in his rather unhealthy history with the subject. He’d learn. Eventually. The Master reached down with his free hand and took hers, holding it up to the lamp light. There was a dark shade of pink marking her skin where the Time Energy had burned her. “Was that a gift from him as well?”

“It’s not his fault.” Missy defended, as the Master brought that hand gently to his lips and kissed it. Aside from the sting of pain she wasn’t entirely sure how that made her feel. Her younger self had the ability to inhabit both sinister and pure frames of mind in parallel. Did he delight in her pain? It was impossible to tell.

“Of _course_ it is his fault. I wish you wouldn’t make excuses for him. It’s embarrassing to listen to.”

“You’re embarrassed by my open display of your secrets – that is all.” Missy corrected him quietly, then dragged her hand from him. The Master’s lips moved to her neck and she turned her head away. “Stop.”

The Master released his hold on her and took a step backwards to consider his future. “Why should we?”

Missy cut the water off to the tub first then turned, resting against the heated metal surface as she looked upon the twisted mirror. “Because this is not a game.”

“I never said it was.” The Master replied.

“Then stop treating it like one. You want to manoeuvre the Doctor around your flimsy board by fucking me? You honestly think _jealousy_ is a pathway to what – to revenge? Are we _that_ petty?” Who was she kidding… Of _course_ they were that petty. “You do not love yourself enough to love me ergo _this_ , whatever it is, has roots somewhere more sinister.”

“Don’t be so fucking pious.” He complained. “Maybe I don’t want to die without one last good-”

“Fuck Hazran then – she’s not getting anywhere with Nardole.” Missy cut him off.

The Master visibly recoiled from _all_ of that sentence. Humans were a mistake. “I’d rather screw a hay bale.”

Missy found him to be a harsh reality check. In many ways regeneration was a death. There were parts of that face she’d never have again. Corners of his personality whose doors slammed forever. She might be better or worse than him but never quite the same. Indeed, the _only_ time she felt the same was with Theta. When they were together something stirred that brought them crashing back to their founding emotions. Time did not pass when they were together. Everything else was a distraction. _This_ was a distraction.

The Master frowned at her continued ocean of silence. “Truthfully – are you all right, Missy?”

She shook her head. No. She most certainly was not all right. The memories dredged up in the barn stung at her heart. However much of a shit the Master tried to be, he’d never be able to hurt her like Theta.

For whatever reason, the Master decided to drop his previous intentions and softened. Perhaps he recognised the reality of what washed beneath Missy’s mournful eyes and fragile façade. “I actually came to ask for your help.” He admitted, stepping forward again. His hands went for the latch on her belt but with none of the earlier overtones. She let him unhook it, undressing her almost reverently. “To find the lifts. We got close this afternoon before a metal bastard tried to do us in.”

“You were attacked by another Cyberman?” Missy asked, alarmed. Her belt hit the floor and his hands shifted to finish with the buttons on her blouse. She allowed this too.

“Indeed and it wasn’t very friendly, I have to say. Turn around.” He added. As soon as she did he dragged the shirt down her arms and set it aside before moving to the latches at the back of her skirt. “Had a real good go at Nardole and I.”

“The lifts must have been close.”

“I’m fine. Thank you very much.”

“Obviously – otherwise you’d have been whinging.” Missy’s skirt fell to the floor where she stepped out of it and kicked it aside. She felt his cool hands on her hips, hooking under the sides of her panties before dragging them down as he knelt behind her. There was a moment where his reserve broke and he gently bit the generous curve of her backside. She wasn’t entirely invulnerable to his touch but equally, she was distracted by the pounding of Death at their door.

He returned to the only item of clothing remaining – her corset. It wasn’t his first attempt at unravelling one and now the mood was more temperate than before he was able to trail his fingers through the tightly fashioned laces. “How do you do this on your own?”

“You’ll learn,” Missy assured him.

“I’m guessing there are benefits to this ridiculous attire?” He asked, tugging on them carefully until the silk and lace creation fell forwards.

Missy peeled it off herself and tossed it toward the bed where it’d be safe from the water. “Most definitely. _No..._ ” She added in another sigh, quieter than the last as his lips found her shoulder and sucked against her skin. She escaped his hold and stepped into the bath. The water rose to her collar bone, washing away the last of Theta’s blood and her mascara. The Master did not retreat. Instead he lingered, arms draped over the edge of the tub, one hand in the water.

“Was he worth it in the end?” The Master asked. “More than half a century locked in a puzzle box for one night with him?”

Stars forgive her. “Yes.” She replied, without reservation.

He swallowed at her reply. That was waiting for him in the smoke of his future.

*~*~*

They came to an arrangement which was quite different to before. Their motivations had undergone a shift. No longer was everything between them a regret fuelled tormented fantasy centring on Theta. This was about _them_ but more directly about _him_.

Missy didn’t need this. She’d moved on from the vacuum of jealous love but the Master existed in the midst of it, grappling for some kind of hope that he was not unlovable. Even his lustful encounters with Theta were not enough to shake the very real fear that he was a charismatic mistake. Missy’s presence had only made that fear worse. The way the Doctor looked at her – with ardency that could shake stars – why hadn’t it been him?

The first moan escaped his lips.

After her bath, Missy had followed the Master back to his room to discuss these plans for finding the lifts. All the windows were open and she could see the stain of smoke hanging about in the air. _Pity_ was the wrong word. She’d seen something else in the Master as he sat in one of the chairs scattered in his room. Truthfully she could not say exactly what brought her to kneel in front of him but his sharp intake of breath as her hands settled on his knees told her that he _needed this_.

Now, she worked her way along his cock with torturous delicacy that could turn at any moment. Her lips traced one of the thickest veins to the head where she swirled her tongue across the generous curve and dragged a rasp from his throat. One of his hands hung onto the chair while the other dragged through her hair.

There was no need for him to hiss instructions. Missy _knew_ what he wanted and kept a breath ahead of his desire. In their dreams it had always been Theta with his mouth wrapped around their cock but if they were truthful, they knew that their Time Lord crush would _never_ be as in tune with their needs.

“Oh...” The Master lifted his hips a fraction as her fingers stroked the base so lightly they felt like a whisper at the same time as Missy’s hot mouth came down around him. He watched himself disappear, inch by inch, between her lips and groaned as his stomach muscles clenched. She was killing him. A suicide of pleasure and frankly if he died now he’d be at peace.

Missy almost expected the Doctor’s name to rattle from the Master’s lips but it wasn’t – it was _hers_ and she hummed against his skin with satisfaction. The hand he had in her hair was a bit too rough, pulling at her tresses but a deep twist of need he had for this spurred Missy on. She set herself the task of unravelling him completely – taking him down her throat in time with his thrusts while her hand worked the very base of his cock. It was not long before she had him gasping desperately – fumbling at the chair with his other hand as his lips lifted in wild spasms.

She was ready for him when he came crashing down. Missy pulled back enough to swallow then followed him through the end of his orgasm with fleeting kisses and licks to his slowly softening cock until finally she pulled away entirely, her hands grazing his thighs.

It was only polite to indulge him, Missy reasoned, considering she’d probably have to kill him before this was through. The thought did not alarm her as much as it should. For the second time she would create her future in challenge of fate.

She looked wild from the mess he’d made of her hair but then, so did the Master with colour risen in his cheeks and sweat rolling off his brow in hopeless streams.

“Missy – that...”

“Sh...” She hushed, folding him back into his pants. Missy tugged the zip up and re-did the buckle on his belt. “That was just for us.”

*~*~*

“I don’t like it when you’re in a good mood.” Nardole complained, as the Master wandered out onto the porch, slinking about like a fucking lord.

“How’s your arm?” He countered, ignoring the android’s poor humour. “Still a bit loose?”

“No – I managed to fix it.” That didn’t stop Nardole glancing at it periodically just in case it decided to take a hike. “What did she say, then?”

The Master was quite literally strutting about like a savannah cat after a kill. “Missy agreed to help us after she checks in on the Doctor. I told her not to bother but she will fuss over that sack of bones.”

Nardole honestly could not decide what he found more concerning: Missy’s deep concern or the Master’s complete lack of it. Both were problematic and neither particularly helpful. “Best to let her. Last thing either of us need is Missy starting off on the wrong foot.” Nardole had some pretty clear memories of crockery flying through the vault directed at his head when he’d tried to understand her relationship with the Doctor. White rain. Sharp, painful, porcelain hell. Oh _sure_ she looked relatively balanced now in a kind of manic expression of depravity but there were plenty of dark patches in those decades that were best left forgotten. A good memory was the one thing you didn’t want in a world built on nightmares.

“Whatever.” The Master shrugged. “Are those _sandbags_?” He cast his gaze over the lopsided wall emerging around the house. “Well, that’s a waste of time.”

“Hush...” Nardole snapped at the Master. “It’s a clever distraction to keep the humans from panicking. Don’t undo your other half’s best work. Just – I don’t know – sit or something.”

“Oh great – here’s your girlfriend...” He muttered, as slumped against the wall. Hazran rushed by him without so much as a second look. Something had her feathers ruffled. Honestly – the universe was jammed full of so much human bullshit it made his head hurt. That’s probably where the fucking drums came from in the first place. Nauseating.

“Ow! That’s my bunk arm. Don’t hit it!” Nardole complained, as Hazran batted him with an open hand. “What have I done now?”

“I should never have been swayed by your kind face!”

Nardole frowned. He was sure that there was a compliment in there somewhere but it was overshadowed by her annoyance. “I don’t follow.”

“Everything is _shit_ , Nardole and it is _all_ your fault. You and your friends.”

Both Nardole and the Master narrowed their eyes. This was obviously about _something else_. Humans were like that – lashing out to make themselves feel better.

“The Cybermen are going to make their way up through the ship regardless. They _have to_ before the whole ship tears itself apart with the pressures of extreme time dilation...” Nardole trailed off. The Master was shaking his head in a, _‘nope – don’t do that’_ sentiment. “Why don’t you sit down ‘ere and I’ll make you a cup of tea?” Nardole changed tact and vacated his chair. He navigated Hazran into it. On his way through the door he shot the Master a look as if to cry for help but the Master had no inclination to do so. One good deed a day was his limit and even that was punching above his quota.

“You know,” the Master said, wandering to stand in front of Hazran after Nardole had left, “I’m not entirely sure that all the bits work.”

“What?” Hazran lifted her gaze, not quite following.

“Nothing.” Torment was no fun at all if the subject was too slow to catch on.

“Right.” She let it drop. Hazran stared at the Master for a long time. “You are unsettling,” she said quietly.

“It’s not the worst observation someone’s made of me,” he admitted. “Was it the face? It’s always the face. I’ve tried a few things with it but-”

“It’s not the face...” Hazran assured him. “You and Missy – together. She is the present – I understand her but if you are her past then there is something impervious about you physically, am I correct? You cannot die because she exists.”

“Theoretically.” The Master replied, surprised that the human had taken more than a passing interest in his existence. Surely it had bigger things to worry about but then, there was nothing quite like inevitable death to focus the mind on questions of life. “Time is – elusive and greatly misunderstood. Paradoxes are unwelcome but not forbidden. I’ve seen them play out.”

“What would happen...”

“Why – are you planning on taking a knife to my heart?” Even as he asked the question, the Master could see that was not the reason for her curiosity. “History re-writes itself. Anything that Missy did ceases to happen and time plays again without her. Consider it a re-draft. True cases of this are very rare. More often than not time pans out exactly as it should. I’m not killed because I simply never am… Ah...” Now he understood. “You’re betting that if I live, as you assume must be the case, then there is a way out of this for everyone, even you. That is a baseless assumption, Hazran but well done for entertaining it.”

She was embarrassed that he’d seen her thoughts. Even if there was a way through for the Master, he clearly didn’t have any of intention on taking anyone with him. He was the wrong Time Lord to place her trust in. That much, at least, was obvious. “Thank you for _entertaining_ my questions.” Hazran echoed quietly.

They spent the rest of the time on the balcony in an awkward peace until Nardole returned with the promised tea and _no idea_ how to calm a ruffled human.

*~*~*

Theta stirred as Missy stepped into his room. She kept her eyes away from the puddle of blood by the fire that had not quite dried and the fragments of glass that picked up the light. Even the wind whistling through the window circled the barren expanse leaving behind a mournful tune as it hassled the bare walls. She could not shake the strange feeling that she had finally come to perch on the edge of the cliff with him – exactly as they’d started.

The Doctor had been drifting in and out of sleep but at least he’d not attempted to move from the bed. His body was doing its best to heal which was more than he’d originally hoped. There was fight left in this weary corpse. He heard Missy’s footsteps on the floor as she wandered closer and then the comforting dip of the bed when she sat. He reached for her hand and meshed their fingers together before finally opening his eyes.

 _This_ – between them – was dangerously close to the romance of their youth. The temptation to immerse herself in it tugged at Missy’s heart as firmly as his hand against hers. How beautiful they’d been in that innocence. How _far away_ those people were.

“Stop thinking it.” Missy whispered. “I can hear you in my head.” Her eyes fluttered closed as she tried to clear his desires from her mind. “You were always a lazy guardian of thought.”

“Why should we stop?” He asked.

_Because it was a cruel enticement_ , she thought, but said nothing. “I only came to check that you hadn’t torn your stitches out. They’re waiting for me downstairs. We’re going back into the forest.” His fingers squeezed hers. “I’ll be fine. The Cybermen  aren’t about to send another scout so soon after the first.  You will have to let me go eventually.” She added, when he failed to release his hold.

“This did not pan out how I imagined.” The Doctor said quietly.

Missy’s frown creased  over her forehead. “I don’t-”

“Saving you. A thousand years, Missy and I went and brought you here. I could have picked any other star and I chose a black hole.”

“You could not have left me in the vault. That was clear from our first conversation back when all it had was a polished floor and featureless walls. I always knew that you’d tire of the bars before me. Stamina...”

He managed a small smirk. “I locked you up.”

“When I was in that drafty, shit excuse for a tower, facing the end, I prayed to the stars every night that you’d come.” She whispered. “I searched my mind for you in the hopes that somewhere you’d feel me reaching. Death isn’t for me, you see. I’ll take the handcuffs any day.” Missy refused to leave the veil of life until she’d settled a few things on Gallifrey. “I really do have to go.”

*~*~*

“No – no – no… Where do you think you’re going?” Missy scooped a small, fleeing child off the ground in front of the farmhouse. They were scampering in the direction of the fields where Nardole and the Master waited at the far edge as a pair of shadows near the start of the woods. She set the small human on her hip and marched it back to the building. “Remember what I said?”

The little one nodded as Missy carried him  up the stairs and then inside.  He couldn’t be far off five and cuddled close  to her side  as they entered the warmth of the main room where the fire was stoked. She set the child down next to the piano where the rest of the children had clustered together, attempting to play a tune.

“Now you wait here.” Missy insisted firmly, making sure it stayed put. “That goes for all of you. No one outside.”

*~*~*

“Late again – I’d nearly given up hope.” The Master said, as Missy joined them at the forest. A wind caught the trees, sighing through their pine needles. They bowed and creaked.

“I said I’d come so here I am.” She replied.

Nardole wasn’t sure about being bookended by these two but  a pair of Time Lords were better than one  and this – well –  _kind of_ counted . “ We’re going to start  our search from where we were attacked and work backwards,  moving deeper into the forest .”

“And you think that my sonic device is going to make a difference?” Missy twirled her umbrella.

Nardole nodded. “That’s the working theory.”

“Based upon? It has all the integrity of water divining.” Missy followed the nutters, twirling her umbrella despite none of their arguments persuading her that this had any chance of working. “Well,” she added, half an hour later when they came upon the Cyberman corpse. “You made quite a mess of this one.”

The Master shrugged.

Missy knelt beside the mangled body and prodded at it  with the sharp tip of her umbrella . “Several hundred years ahead of the other model at least. This time dilation is out of hand.  The workmanship is a bit shoddy though.  Looks like a rush job. ” Sh e lifted up one of the arms. “It’s a  _long_ way from my Cyber army.”

“Your _what_?” The Master’s mouth dropped open.

Nardole flinched. He’d been trying not to bring that up. “We don’t have time to dredge up the past – future – ah – thing .”  Tenses were confusing.

“No – seriously. You were dabbling in Cybermen too?” The Master strolled closer with an air of intrigue.

Missy rolled her eyes. “The difference is, darling, when I did it my Cybermen didn’t try and kill me. I had everything under control.”

“So did I.”

“This is not control, it’s mayhem and they weren’t even _your_ Cybermen,” Missy corrected him. “All you did was tag onto the edge of some Mondasian fuckery and claim it as your own. Spectating is not the same as engineering. Had your ass not been marooned on  this ship in the first place you’d have lost interest ages ago.”

The Master was quite put out by her remarks, mostly because they were true. He  _hated_ the decades spent on board the ship and any curiosity he had for the rise of the Cybermen died out a long time ago.  Sure, he dressed his interest up rather vocally now to save face but taking the slow path was a drudgery he did not enjoy in the slightest.

“Now – now. Don’t fight.” Nardole said quietly. “We came here to find lifts, how about we focus on that? There’ll be plenty of time for bickering when we get out of this mess. I promise I won’t stop you. Mud wrestle to your heart’s content.”

M issy stood up, abandoning the corpse. “Fine but even if we find the lifts you have to admit, it’s all a very short term solution to our problem.”

“The short term is all we have right now.” Nardole replied. “It’ll have to be enough.”

Missy exchanged a look with the Master. There was no way he was finding the lifts to skip a few levels up the ship. He was going to go down to the depths and return to their Tardis. Oh well… At least she could trust him in the search. There, at least, their goals aligned. When they inevitability found themselves at the crux of this crisis she knew there’d be difficult choices to make regarding her younger self of which the Doctor would not approve.

*~*~*

It was dark by the time they returned to the farmhouse. Hazran  waited nervously at the door, holding it open with a lantern aloft, levelled at the darkness.  Who knew what ghosts she saw lurking in the darkness.  She didn’t even have the heart to berate Nardole  when they traipsed in to the farmhouse , thick with forest residue. There was no need to ask. They hadn’t found the lifts but there was nothing they could do in this light. They’d have to start at it again first thing tomorrow.  If tomorrow came at all.

The Master skulked into the library to pick his way through the remains of dinner and hiss about anything that took his fancy. Nardole was ushered away by Hazran to do whatever it was those two did when no one else was around while Missy was left leaning against the closed  front  door. Two things were almost certain to happen when the sky lightened. The Cyber army would come and Bill would wake.

Missy sighed and gripped her umbrella firmly. It was all she could do to stop the tightness in her chest. This thickening dread that had taken root in her was unfamiliar. She’d never been so wary of the hours. What if, she wondered, this was actually the final breath? Why did  _this_ feel so different?  Is this what humans called, ‘mortal fear’? T ime Lords were not meant to concern themselves with such things but it clung to her soul.

Maybe it was her fault. She’d given the Master back his laser screwdriver and allowed the Doctor to determine her fate. He hadn’t been in the best of moods when he’d returned it either. Surely though, after all that had happened since,  the Doctor would have told her – or tried to amend the decision – if it was death… He couldn’t possibly want this friendship to be over and if he did…

Honesty hurt. Of the pair of them, only the Doctor had the will to kill her. She suspected it was his way of killing his regret and pain. This was the first face that was prepared to let him.

*~*~*

The Doctor was sitting up in bed with his back against the wall and a few pillows erected as a fort ress of sorts. His head dipped toward a book that he read by a mixture of lamp and firelight.  Its pages rustled with age, dried and crinkled from a flood that came and went. Missy crossed the room.  She’d changed into a long, pearl nightgown that brushed the floor near her bare feet – a few of its loose threads catching on the rough floorboards . He looked better, at least,  wearing a white shirt  with  half  its buttons done to hide the bandages.

“You didn’t find them.” He made the observation without looking up.

“We will tomorrow.” Missy assured him. “They were close.”

This time h e averted his gaze from the book . His pale eyes beckoned her closer and she obeyed. There was enough room for her to sit beside him and rest her spine against the wall. They sat close, her left side revelling in the return of his warmth.

“What aren’t you telling me, Missy?”

“A great deal.” She replied, wistfully. “None of which matters.”

H e closed the book and set it on the small sill beneath the window.  “ You’re always wearing a costume for the world, Missy – to disguise your true self but I see you. I always see you.”  This evening she looked like something stolen from Earth’s 1800’s. A Shelley of the night.

“Nah...” She tried to brush him off lightly but she knew all too well that there were countless times Theta didn’t see her at all. He had a selective memory that focused on the lighter parts of their friendship. Missy did not wallow in the darkness but she was certainly careful not to discard it. “You forget, I _know_ you.”

“You are the only one who does…” He breathed back.

That gave her a moment of pause. _He was right._ They were the only breathing souls in all of reality that truly knew each other. Suddenly, whatever petty point she’d intended to make did not matter.

“Say something nice.” Missy replied instead.

“Why do you always say that?”

“I don’t know. Whenever I’m afraid – it’s like a reflex.”

_She was afraid._ Yes. He could see that in her sapphire eyes but some of that fear was reserved for him and he wasn’t sure why. The Doctor reached up with one hand, cupping her slender face. She leaned into the touch and he instinctively drew her a little closer.

“I miss you – whenever you are gone. For all those dragging centuries. I’d rather chase after your apocalypse than sit there in the silence wondering what befell you. I’ll take the bloodshed with your affection. Don’t cry, Missy...” Her tears were his fault. Before the vault her impenetrable façade had given him strength but now it was cracked.

“You said this was ‘good’.”

“I don’t know where good starts and ends any more.” He admitted.

“ _This_ is good.” Missy contradicted the Master’s earlier sentiment as she leaned in and kissed the Doctor thoroughly.

His mind reeled from what he’d said in the barn and done to her in the thousands of years since they were on Gallifrey. How could she possibly wish to hold him like this – to kiss him with such pained depths of love after what transpired? Her forgiveness was intoxicating and he found himself tumbling into it. She was the mother of his only true born child and the centre of his soul. It was a mistake to forget that.

“This isn’t fair.” He whispered, breaking the kiss for a moment. Her lips nicked the corner of his mouth – then his jaw – then his neck along with the familiar brush of her hair across his skin. His injury left him entirely at her whim and she was being ever so careful with him.

When her hand slid inside his partially open shirt and cupped his side the Doctor murmured her name. Her fingers fell short of the edge of his bandage and she was cautious not to place any weight where it might hurt. Her lips found the base of his throat and the Doctor’s head fell back against the wall in soft submission.

“Koschei – I’ve been thinking.”

“Mmm?” She hummed on his flesh, shifting lower to his shivering muscles.

“You should leave with _him_.”

Missy lifted her head. The fire crackled behind them at the edge of the room. “What are you talking about?”

He combed his fingers through her hair. “We both know that he’s going to survive this so, after we’ve done what we can in this war you should follow him out.”

Naive fool… “The Master is not staying for the war.” Missy warned him.

“He will. He’s changed since I last saw him.”

Missy placed her finger across his lips, hushing him. The Master had _not_ changed for the better. “We’ll cross those chasms when we come to them. Tonight, perhaps our last night, let’s be as we were all those years ago. Hold me as you did – make me believe that the black mountains are behind us and the sky rolling into umber with our pair of stars.”

She took her finger away and he leaned down, placing a kiss in her hair. Missy shifted on the bed, sliding one leg over his lap so that she straddled him. His breathing shallowed – well aware of the terrible wound on his side that loosened his grip on the world.

“What happened to behaving?” He asked.

“I won’t hurt you,” Missy assured. _That was always him._


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a little extra time today so I wrote a bit more for you. We've caught up to canon now.

_Slow._ That is how the Doctor’s hands encroached on Missy, beginning at her knees which peeked from the  lace  edge of her nightgown.  His thumbs circled her smooth skin, nudging the fabric higher until it draped across her upper thighs.  Not even the shadows could hide the stirring revelation – she wasn’t wearing anything beneath it...

Missy’s eyes shone with a dangerous mixture of desire and  limitless  affection. She reached down to one of his hands  and clasp ed it by  the wrist.  His heartbeats were closest to the surface where the paper-thin skin barely covered the rising pulse.

“Missy...” The Doctor breathed, but she ignored his warning and guided his hand to the warmth between her legs, slipping under the last of her nightgown until his fingers unfurled and brushed through her slick centre in tease.

She moaned softly in response,  indulging the brutally tender press of his digit then leaned forward to devour him in a heavy kiss  to leave him with no question about what she’d come for tonight .  His longest finger traced around her entrance and while she dominated the kiss he weakened her defence by nudging inside her – teasing her as his finger sank all the way and curled. Missy broke from his lips with a sharp gasp  as her stomach dropped and toes curled .

The Doctor dipped his head and kissed her beautiful neck. “You still like this, I see.”

His words triggered unbridled memories of her former self  seated against a rough cliff, halfway up one of the mountains near her home with the Doctor’s fingers thrusting  roughly inside her. His teeth  bit at her shoulder while her long hair tumbled through the wind  with the final cry of forbidden release.

T hey both groaned in distraction.

“Did you see that?” Missy asked, between kisses that dragged into minutes.

He nodded as he risked a second finger inside her and was met with a quiver of muscle.  This was the only power he’d ever wanted over her – the power to turn her world upside down. Missy could rule the entire universe if she chose so long as he ruled her heart. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to confess that – not even through kisses so fierce a human would cower.

“And _this?_ ” She asked dangerously, bringing their foreheads together.

_An empty lecture hall filled their minds. Its ceiling reached impossibly high, glassed in with a forcefield that allowed the starlight and creeping glow of the approaching moon. The circular room was lined with statues built in the likeness of ancient figures in their civilisation. Rassilon. The Other. Omega. Scholars that founded the academy. Soldiers that fought the vampire realm. Their cold, stone eyes stared into nowhere like a congregation of Weeping Angels waiting for the light to fail._

_Theta and Koschei sat in the empty hall surrounded by a deluge of scrolls that littered half a dozen of the stone steps which served the duel purpose of seating like an ancient Greek amphitheatre. The only light came from the distant stars above. They weren’t allowed in here any more – not after Koschei’s change from handsome, promising student to rebellious Time Lady with amber hair past her waist and piercing green eyes. Most feared her but Theta was enthralled by every breath._

_Sneaking into the academy was nothing new to them. Tonight was no different._

_He tossed one of the scrolls into the abyss where it bounced away, unravelling one step at a time. Theta felt Koschei’s gaze set with resting disapproval. He countered by sliding down one of the steps and knelt in front of her which only served to deepen her disapproval._

_She was serious and he – playful._

_His hands wrapped around one of her calves and lifted it boldly onto his shoulder. They didn’t wear the crimson robes any more – relegated instead to amethyst and black. The folds of fabric tumbled down her long limb revealing a pale expanse of flesh that had no place baring itself in the depths of the academy._

“ _Theta – what are you-” but he cut her off with his lips kissing the inside of her knee. “Oh...”_

_Her body was new to them both and Theta was unable to resist her. They were like humans – base and desperate in their affection – a disappointment to the lofty ideals of Time Lord reserve. Well – ‘reserve’ wasn’t them at all. The slight curve of Koschei’s stomach was proof enough of that._

_Hours passed with only shuddering breaths and muffled cries as they fucked desperately in the heart of Gallifrey._

The Doctor broke the connection first, struggling to breathe under the intensity of her memory. That night, like so many others, had built their friendship beyond anything the other Time Lords could understand. They’d cut emotion from their world and been left as barren as the deserts encroaching on the city.

He swallowed. The memory of where’d they’d ended that night left him straining against his pants. He withdrew his hand, sticky from her growing wetness and moved to the buckle on his belt.

She batted both his hands away and instead took the leather, pushing it free of the metal clasp. The fraction that it tightened made the Doctor’s stomach muscles clench. She could see them shift beneath his shirt and hear his pair of hearts beat a big stronger than before.

His hands settled on her thighs in reverence as she worked the belt free and undid the button. By the time she dragged down on the zip he was struggling with her slow pace. She was taking her time with him – making another memory.

“This is not where we end.” The Doctor lied.

Missy wanted to believe. Without hurting him, she drew his erection from his pants and palmed him longingly. “Remember what I said?” She whispered in reply. “We’ve been to the brink of reality together – Time’s conception and destruction. There is no end to this story.”

“Let me see you...”

She reached down and took the edges of her nightgown then pulled it over her head, tossing it to the bed behind leaving her entirely naked to the firelight. Next, she unhooked the two pins holding her hair and allowed it to ripple down nearly to her waist. These bodies that they’d chosen were not the lean, smooth faces of their youth. They’d lived and suffered and bore the scars as silver streaks that caught the firelight. The Doctor’s fingertips touched a diagonal line that run under her breast. He did not dare ask where that originated or the patch of discolouration above her hip. She’d seen violence and survived, just like him. The freshest of them was the crack along her lip.

He wondered where she’d found this face. It was astonishing to think that the Master strutting around the house right now, plotting his escape would become the woman canting forward to steal him in a kiss that threatened to shake his soul. The Doctor felt her breasts pressing softly on his chest and her hearts falling into synch with his. He danced his hands down her back until they found the dip of her waist then the curve of her arse. They cupped beneath the flesh and lifted a little, bringing Missy as close as he dared without putting any weight on his chest.

One of her hands draped around his shoulders while the other was anchored against the wall. Her breath caught when the tip of his cock bumped against her lower stomach – hard and slick from the white liquid leaking at the tip. His obvious _want_ was as intoxicating as liquor.

“Missy...”

“I know.” She replied, hearing his need. Missy shifted her weight onto her knees and rose up, hovering over the head of is cock. She came down slowly, letting it slide back and forward several times, right through her wet centre before it pushed into her, parting her folds. Missy’s groan was heavy and strangled as the inches vanished – tempered only by the tight grip of the Doctor’s hands on her flesh. “I-” she tried to speak but pleasure and lust circled her thoughts and wiped them clean.

Missy took him all the way until she was sitting on the top of his thighs with his cock buried deep inside. She kissed him again and both of them struggled with the intimacy. Being careful and going slow was more torturous than their earlier rush of passion. As the Doctor returned his hand to stroke across her clit, Missy panted against his lips and instead of tears, beads of sweat tumbled off her face and hit his shoulder. By the time she started to lift her body and roll her hips in steady strokes, they were gripping at each other and fighting their way through kisses.

_Perfection_ . The Doctor opened his eyes as Missy tore herself away and allowed her head to fall right back.  H er spine arch ed , driving his cock even further inside her body.  He splayed his hand over her delicate neck then dragged it down between her breasts and over her stomach, feeling it flutter and clench.

B y the time his thumb pressed against her, she was moaning his true name in Gallifreyan and he was echoing with hers.  Even as they came together, Missy continued to buck her hips and drive his release  deeper, wanting every part of him and  propelled by the sheer terror that this was  _the last time_ .

*~*~*

“Do you think we should be here?” Nardole asked, leaning against the barn wall. It was a hideously sad creation. He wasn’t normally subjective about buildings but there were places in the universe that exuded emotion. The Singing Towers of Derilium. The Forests in the Beatsworth Peninsula. Twelve Pools of Temptation. It was a paradoxical idea that held true and these unassuming walls were drenched in sorrow. 

Hazran sat on the floor, nestled on a pile of blankets that she’d brought down for Bill. She was more wary of the metal creature than before but some odd sense of duty kept here there, waiting for the first twitch of life. “Missy said that it would wake tomorrow – today,” it was so late that it was early, “and I’ll not have it unattended.  Her. Bill.”

T he conflicting idea of a living soul in a metal box made her mind flinch. Whatever form of life it was, waking up alone in a barn was not the best start.

Nardole shrugged, fussing with a piece of straw. He was shredding it slowly, tearing away its flaxen cas ing to keep his hands busy. It was pitch black in the barn without the lantern. Some of the walls bore  ashen scars from the previous energy discharge while the door was brand new. Its blonde wood  stood out of place  as a stark reminder that there was every chance the Bill  he knew had already perished with the Cyber software.

“I can stay instead,” Nardole offered. “Technically I don’t need to sleep. You do.”

“I’d rather not waste my last day sleeping.” Hazran replied quietly. “So if it’s all the same to you I’ll stay.”

“Then I’ll stay too.”

W hat followed was silence. Hazran  analysed her mess of conflicted feelings  which mingled with genuine fear. She nursed a shotgun across her lap as though it were a lifeline. The Cyberman laying on the ground hadn’t moved but the lights on its chest continued to flicker.

“You can talk to me, you know, if you want.” Nardole said quietly. “I know something upset you today. Was it the Master because he says a lot of things that you shouldn’t pay attention to.”

“It was Missy, actually.” She replied softly.

“Missy…”

“She was talking about the children and – well – I never had any.”

Nardole had noticed but certainly not intended to ask. All he did was nod.  He should have recognised the emotion – it was the same expression he’d caught River with, sitting in the sand with a ruin at her feet taking less joy in the ancient threads of civilisation than normal.

“Not just that.” The white’s of Hazran’s eyes caught a stray shard of light. “She showed me the night she lost hers...”

“What?” Nardole lifted his head in surprise.

“I saw the fire. Clear as anything – like I was _there_. It was a huge building, far grander than this farmhouse and yet it was engulfed in flame. It is what I imagine a star to be. I could hear her screams in my head. That’s all I saw.”

“Bloody hell...” Nardole breathed, as he looked to his feet.

“I’m almost certain it was the Doctor’s child – he was there too and – well it was a _feeling_. It’s hard to explain  but she was in my mind.”

Nardole rested heavily against the wall, reassessing everything he thought he knew.

“Missy lost what I feared to lose,” Hazran continued far more quietly. “Facing that – it’s why I shouted at you earlier. Because, Nardole – this is done. I’m done. Knowing that changes you, I think… There aren’t any more pages in my book. All those years I spent avoiding the library and now I’m about to be one of them voices ‘cept there’s no one left to hear me. So – so that’s why I yelled.”

“That doesn’t matter,” he assured her. “People shout at me all the time.” He was still thinking about the Time Lords – all three of them and didn’t notice the depth of Hazran’s emotion. Nardole was too busy with the idea that his perception of Missy and the Doctor was flawed to the core. They were _more_ than friends or lovers. “I’ve known the Doctor a long while,” Nardole added. “Longer than Missy. He never gave any indication that… I guess it doesn’t matter now. Odds are we’ll be dead later today.”  Had he known, he may have treated them differently.

“True. Very true.” Hazran ran her hand along the barrel of the rifle. There was absolutely no point in it. She was no different to one of the children upstairs, clutching at their toys.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go back into the house and be with the other humans?”

Hazran nodded. “Quite sure, Nardole.”  There was another stretch of silence filled by the scratch of the door against its hinges. “My father taught me that it was our duty to protect the farmhouse for the ghosts of our past, the souls of the living and promise of the future. ”

“He was a wise man.”

“What do we do, Nardole, when there is no future at all?”

*~*~*

It was deep into the night when Missy looked over at the Doctor, sound asleep, with his head tilted toward the window and a rectangle of blue light cut over his face. She propped herself up onto one elbow and  stroked her fingertips  through the short hair above his ear.  Then  her lips kissed beside his eye where a network of creases fanned out in tribute to the thousands of smiles that lived and died.

_Love_ , she thought,  _what was that but another way to hurt each other?_ For this affection made the resolve she had to hold all the more difficult.

Before she left his bed, Missy brushed her lips across his.  Hesitated at their touch. A final kiss that  she’d keep while  he’d remember only in dreams  and wonder, years from now, if it had been real at all.

*~*~*

Missy did not return to her bedroom. Instead she ignored the cold and climbed the stairs to the attic, clambering through the awkward window. She picked her nightgown off the nails where it had caught before stepping, barefoot, onto the shingles of the farmhouse roof. This time she stood against the night – looking out onto a world of ruin and destruction – finally seeing it for the cage that it was.

T he smoke from the earlier fray had stretched into a band of haze against the otherwise perfect nightly dome. The ‘moonlight’ emanated from the cursed numbers hanging abov e while the wind, which tried to claw at her nightgown and hair, tasted bitter.

It wasn’t just the ship, with its skeleton tearing under the wax and wane of gravity and time – it was the  _whole universe._ Time as well. She could sense the walls around her – imagined them as real. Missy was trapped by the length and breadth of reality. Caged and furious.  _Give me the drums_ , she thought. At least they could be silenced with a knife but this  revelation was not some imagined hell. It was the ‘suffering veil of tears’ for which humans wept so bitterly over.

Time Lords were  _not_ immortal. As much as she despised the idea, her kind flared into existence and snapped out of it as quickly as an exotic particle, spiralling wildly for a moment before being folded back into the fabric of space.

_She didn’t want to go._

There had to be a way to survive it. There just  _had to be._

*~*~*

The Master sat at the tiny desk in his room. His laser screwdriver laid on the desk. He nudged one end of it and watched it spin on its apex, around and around and around. _Missy._ He thought of her even if he didn’t want to. Compassion was a terrible emotion. The Master hated any whisper of affection and yet here he was _seriously_ considering taking her with him.

It was ludicrous to the core. Obviously. Whenever Missy was nearby he lost the ability to maintain his memories. What kind of future was there in that arrangement? None. It was stupid so why was he imagining what it would be like to hunt around the universe with her? They could rule it together – or drink their way from one side to the next. Whatever – both sounded fun.

All he knew was that he was repulsed by the thought of leaving her standing in a graveyard at the Doctor’s side. He didn’t deserve that kind of devotion. If he wanted to die _fine_ he could die alone.

The Master placed his hand over the screwdriver, stilling it. _Yes._ He would ask her to come with him. Just for a little while.

* ~*~*

H azran  bent over cautiously, shifting the stack of blankets closer to the Cyberman. It had woken in a drowsy haze a few hours ago at which point Hazran  immediately  sent Nardole back to the house  to wake the Doctor .

Calm and quiet – that was the safest thing for the wakening mind locked inside its steel prison.  That’s how she moved. Treat Bill like the foals.

“Sorry you have to stay out here…” Hazran said, as it lifted its head and looked at her with that pair of voids. “You’d – frighten the children.” With no twitch of muscle or crease of skin, it was impossible to tell if the creature understood what she was saying. It was difficult to think of Cybermen as people, particularly after Hazran had devoted her life to their extermination but she was going to _try_.

“Whereeee am Iiiii?” It asked.

Hazran bawked at the first metallic speech.  She’d expected a fragment of humanity to be reflected in its speech but there was  _nothing_ but the harsh scratch of synthesised voice. Bill was a machine.

* ~*~*

The Doctor woke alone with the light warming his cheek. He laid his hand on his stomach, tentatively feeling the cut beneath the bandage. He’d have to change it before he went out but he felt, at least for a while, that he was strong enough to stand.

_Knock. Knock. Knock._

He stirred properly and realised that it was the knock at the door not the light that had woken him. Missy? She was gone. The only remnant of her was the disturbed sheets beside him.

“Come on...” The Doctor cleared his throat and shuffled up so that he was sitting.

Nardole bumbled in carrying a lantern. It was only the very early throes of morning and the corridors remained dark, not yet stirring to the soft light outside. “Doctor.” He started, crossing over to the bed. If he noticed that the Doctor had enjoyed company the night before he said nothing. “It’s Bill. She’s waking up.”

_Bill_ . The moment he feared. “Okay I’m-” He tried to shift his legs out of the bed but Nardole pressed him back.

“No, wait on. Better change that first.” He nodded at the bandage. It had bled right through during the night. “It’s all right. Hazran is down there with her.”

“Hazran?” He was wary. Hazran made no attempt to hide her displeasure at keeping Bill in the barn beside the house.

“You’re going to have to trust me.” Nardole insisted. “Missy and the Master have already left to search for the lifts. I passed them on my way back to the house. Today’s it, I think.” He added. “Everyone can feel it.”

“You better tie that bandage tight, then.” The Doctor nodded at Nardole.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry guys, there was more than a week between the last update.

Fear gripped Bill as she awoke  again .  Her world was more akin to filtered darkness than the beginnings of light as morning tried to break in through the solitary window beyond reach. As she turned toward it, face hitting the ghost of warmth, she heard a creak of metal most likely whining from the barn doors.  They were barred in place with planks of wood leaving them to sit heavy on their hinges while cobwebbed-wood lashed itself over the rest of the walls giving the mournful building a soul of abandonment.

Bill found a few piles of straw and a layer of it spread over the hard-packed dirt. Her hand brushed some away to reveal the marks of animal hooves. Definitely a stable. The air smelled of oil and ash. It stuck in her lungs but the desperate urge to cough it out refused to manifest as though her body were locked on pause.

She sat up. Wisps of memory chased themselves around her mind. None of them lingered long enough for her to catch hold. Some, she doubted, belonged to her at all. There were glimpses of a golden city and a pastel sky.

Then events flooded back to her. The distress call. The ship caught in the lips of a black hole. Missy’s foray into Doctorhood.  _Crack._ A hole through the  heart .  _Bill gripped at her shirt but her chest was perfectly smooth. No hole…_ Razor and his decade of terrible cooking. That was where the memories ended.

The Doctor. He must have found a way to save her. How else could the terrible thing in her chest be gone? That did not explain what she was doing locked in a barn but that might be for her own safety. She’d ask him. Where was he?

Waiting in silence was the safest course of action. After many hours she lay back down, bundling up one of the  grey  blankets  beneath her as a pillow. There, she drifted off and her mind wandered to thoughts of distant stars, churning in the darkness as if calling her.

E ventually she pulled herself from the temptation and took to her feet. Bill wandered over to the window and gently grasped the grey fabric draped over the now bright daylight. She glimpsed the world beyond with its lurid vista of green and blue until the bolt on the bar door slipped aside.

She staggered back and called, “Hello?”

Expecting to see the Doctor, Nardole or even Missy – Bill was startled by the approaching child who replied in kind.

“Everyone is too scared to talk to you,” the little girl continued, “but I’m no’.”

Bill didn’t quite understand why she was relegated to the barn, unless perhaps this was a boxed-society inside the spaceship where outsiders were treated with default fear. That seemed to be what the little girl was trying to imply. It was Bill’s appearance that frightened the others. Or – or maybe it was worse. Her face could have been scared in some horrific manner. Bill lifted her hands, running them carefully over her features but she could find no fault. Unsure of what else to do, she asked the child for a mirror.

While she was gone, Bill returned to the window. In the distance she could make out a farmhouse surrounded by activity and looming in the sky above, a floor number.  _Yes…_ She was still on the ship. If only she could remember what had happened after her and Razor went looking for the lifts. Bill closed her eyes and tried to find the memories but they were gone – as if someone had cut them out.

*~*~*

“This is nice, though, isn’t it? Now the tin dog is gone… Much more peaceful. The distant chaos of wartime preparation coupled with bird song? What’s not to like, eh?”

Missy was doing her best to ignore the near constant drone of her teenage self as they pressed deeper into the forest. At least with Nardole the Master pretended to behave. As soon as the android took his leave and returned to the farmhouse, the Master immediately continued to build his tower of schemes. He was  _obsessed_ with the idea of long awaited freedom and wasted energy indexing all the things he’d engage in as soon as they were off this cursed ship. Including what he wanted to do to her, which he detailed extensively until Missy seriously entertained the idea of giving him another good whack with her umbrella. The irony was so heavy in the Master’s propositions that he’d not even considered the reality that should he succeed he’d have no memory of his exploits.

“Would you just shut up for a minute,” Missy hushed him with a raised hand, “and tell me if you’ve felt anything? The lifts have _got to_ be in this area. They simply must.” They were probably walking around them in blink circles.

If the Master was put out by her abrupt tone he didn’t show it.

_Good heavens…_ Missy suffered a moment of panic.  _What if he was a little in love with himself?_

“No twitch of interest over here,” he replied, with unnecessary innuendo.

H onestly, if they ever did travel together, she’d have to lock him in a vault (which oddly made the Doctor’s position on the matter more understandable). The Master compounded her annoyance with an unkind comment directed at the bruises on her neck. Missy was about to snap at him for the hundredth time this morning when her umbrella emitted a high-pitched frequency. Forgetting her rage, she backtracked across the forest floor and swiped the tip over the area between the trees. The same squeal of success rang out.

Lift. Doors.

*~*~*

The Doctor stole a moment from time. It was nothing that anyone would notice. A fragment of a minute. Not even that. A gasp of seconds where he stood by his door, ignoring the pain in his lower side as he reached to the ledge above the fireplace. There his fingers nudged the silver edge of Missy’s hairpin. She’d left it  sitting there – a tangible proof of the promises they’d made and broken.

*~*~*

“Is – that it?” Bill asked hesitantly, as the little girl returned carrying something covered in a cloth. To be frank, Bill was not quite sure what she was nervous about. Unless she’d turned blue like the alien from the flight deck. Blue? Blue she could probably work with if she really had to. It was just another colour.

The girl was  _genuinely_ afraid. That much was evident by the way she placed the mirror on the ground instead of handing it over and then quickly backed away to maintain a certain distance between them.

“I wouldn’t harm you, you know.” Bill tried to comfort her but there was something in the delivery that startled the girl even more.

B ill knelt to the ground and retrieved the mirror. It was awkward in her hand as she slid away the heavy fabric covering it. The breath she’d been holding released when she saw that the mirror was face down. Bill had to steel herself again as she turned it over in her hands. Slowly, edging in from the side, came the image of a monster.

Instead of a gasp Bill heard the rasp of oxygen tanks.

*~*~*

“I’ll go – you stay here and mind the lifts.”

“Mind. The. Lifts???” The Master repeated, drowning his words in disbelief. “Because you think they’re going to up and wander off? They’re _lifts_ , Missy. Now that we’ve found them we can all go back for tea. Missy! I’m not staying with the lifts.”

“Why not?” She huffed, turning. Missy had already started back towards the farmhouse and paused at the girth of a dead pine whose limbs had all fallen off and laid on the forest floor around them, overrun by moss.

“I can’t stand the thought of you going back there and _fawning all over him_.” He admitted. “You don’t think I’ve noticed but I have. He’s turned you soft with those big, sad eyes. All that guilt you’re wallowing in, you’re supposed to keep that tucked away, Missy. You don’t let it rule your head. Regret. Pain. Love. Fury. You’re wearing them all too close to the surface. Frankly, it’s disgusting. It’s like you’re going to unravel or something.”

The worst part about it was that he was speaking the truth. “ Then you go.” Was all she’d reply to those charges.

The Master tossed his laser screwdriver playfully in the air. “Fine.”

Missy’s eyes locked onto the screwdriver, watching it tumble through the air. “But don’t be a shit about it.”

*~*~*

He didn’t quite manage it. Hands shoved into his pockets, the Master strolled up the muddy rise to the barn to the Doctor and his pet. He lasted barely a breath before giving in to the temptation of baiting the Cyberman.

It was not that he did not grasp the full truth of Bill’s situation and his role in it – or that he had no inklings of remorse. Mockery was his defence against the surging feelings his other self seemed so desperate to express. Well, not him. Cruelty was safer, though Bill’s refusal to rail against his bait was most disappointing.

Instead, the Master ended up leading the way back through the forest. The Doctor showed no interest in speaking with him – he had that face on. The one that looked like a tortured horse outside the knackery.

Well  _fine_ . The hypocrisy did not belong to him, it was the Doctor’s alone. He was the one that forgave the darkness its sins against the sun and worshipped the forbidden with no hope of reprieve.

Even now he could hear the robot’s questions scratching through the country air. Demands for truth which the Doctor could not muster. “Less to throw away...” He helped, leering into the fray. Well that at least gave them something to discuss which would have been fine except they’d stopped following him.

The Master huffed and sat down on the small hill, facing a brook. It bubbled along, a dark trickle below with no notion of its artificial creation.  That’s how a Cyberman should be. A shell or the artifice without the burden of memory. Bill was the first attempt at suppressing humanity and it had not worked. She’d become this hybrid of violent opposition whose war would have a victor eventually.

“Look,” he got up after his patience expired. “It’s just over here – right? Feel free to follow along when you’re done with the existential crisis.” With that, the Master strolled on along the bank of the river and ducked into the forest where the damp ground opened out into a clearing.

“Where is the Doctor?” Missy asked, when the Master returned alone.

“Limping along.”

“And naturally you did the polite thing and waited for him.” Missy muttered.

The Master shrugged. “Did you work out the holographic field yet?”

Missy turned back to the empty space in front and raised her sonic umbrella. As the tip lifted the field began to disintegrate from the bottom up, revealing  a towering cylinder of blue energy that looked as though a star were birthing from the ground. Its beauty annoyed her. Missy had always had a soft spot for the study of holographics and these backwards Mondasians had an exquisite example of it.

“Weird,” the Master showed no interest in the revealed lift, only Missy, “how you don’t remember any of this...”

They’d been through this… Only this time the Master’s words were laced suspicion. Did he know that she’d seen glimpses of memories she should not have? Had he worked out that their time lines and future were currently in a precarious state of flux? “Two of us together puts the time lines out of synch with one another,” she replied, without losing focus on the quivering holographic field as she dismantled it. “You can’t retain your memories so I don’t have them.”

Her eagerness to lie curled the Master’s eyebrow up. Technically there was nothing wrong with her answer except that her practical experience defied the universe. For a moment he thought she might be about to admit to that but Missy’s face fell in abject horror, fixated on the creature behind him.

_Bill_ . Not a Cyberman but Bill in the flesh. She was approaching with the Doctor, her face awash with defeat – tears freshly dried. Missy understood it was not real. Like the little girl she’d wrapped a blanket around in the barn, this Bill was projecting her preferred human façade to any telepath sensitive enough to see.  Which was  _only_ her. “Y-you absolutely had to bring her, did you?” Missy asked weakly of the Doctor, who used a stick to keep himself from falling.

“Her…?” The Master scorned his elder self. “It’s a Cyberman now...” He stalked off to the side.

Missy was left staring at Bill Potts, looking into the very human eyes that she could not even recall betraying. She could still hear the little girl asking for her mother in the shed. Bill was someone’s child and look what she had done to her… What had happened to her own child… “Yeah – sorry...” Her gaze dropped but all she could taste with the bitter grit of ash. While he continued to mutter away in the background, the Doctor approached. Missy sensed him, inching carefully toward her. It took her a while to meet his eyes. She wasn’t sure what she might find there. Renewed hatred? Disappointment? The barest notions of contempt?

Missy finally looked at him.

Sorrow – equal to hers. After all this time they were on the same page  _and it shook her to the soul._

She almost missed his question.

* ~*~*

“It’s a mathematical impossibility...” The Doctor growled.

Missy wasn’t sure why he was growling it  _particularly_ at her. Junior was bloody enjoying himself and Bill was touching the top of her head, astounded by the violent beam of energy that had just disabled the more advanced Cyberman.

“Right well – I’m not standing out here in the damp any longer,” the Master turned tail and began making his way through the forest in the direction of the farmhouse. With working lifts and an army of Cybermen probably en-route, there was no reason to stick around and chat.

Bill also started to follow, though she picked her way slowly through the stubby ferns and ankle deep grass  but  paused as she reached the first line of trees that circled the clearing.

The Master was bounding off ahead of her, following the track along the river but Missy and the Doctor were still standing in front of the lift doors. She turned in time to see the Doctor crowd Missy, taking a step toward her. Missy was shaking her head, a glisten of unshed tears in her eyes as they argued softly about something. The Doctor dropped his stick and Bill watched, shocked, as he took a firm hold of her shoulders when one of those tears fell. She made a weak attempt to bat him away but the Doctor dragged Missy against his chest and into an embrace.

It was not an ordinary hug. This was born in a moment of fear and reciprocated as Missy sank against him and wrapped her arms around his back. His hand tangled in her hair as if they’d never stop holding one another. Bill didn’t know that seeing her Cyber-form masked by a flesh projection  had been too much for Missy.

The Doctor was whispering something else in Missy’s ear while she nodded against his shoulder. Without warning, Missy’s knees gave and she slipped from his arms and crumpled to the ground, kneeling with her head in her  shaking hands. The Doctor did his best to follow, crouching despite his injury. His hands wiped the tears from her face then he retrieved a tiny slip of silver from his coat pocke t . A hair pin. He twisted a stray length of her hair between his fingers and lovingly pinned it back in place.

Missy reached up to his arm, grasping it softly.

What Bill had guessed from the beginning was clearly true.

*~*~*

Bill waited by the river, sitting in the grass. Even now she had to admit that she could not _actually_ feel the wet ground beneath her – or the breeze against her face – or even smell the wood fire smoke that twisted along the surface of the river, pressed down by the cold. Those initial experiences were all built on memory laid over action. None of it was real.

Missy passed along the track above alone, stalking toward the farmhouse as the first _thudding_ sirens rang out from beneath the ground. It was a terrifying sound. An unthinkable pounding of noise that had she not already considered herself dead, she’d fear.

When Missy was out of sight, Bill stood and moved back to the path. The Doctor approached from the left. He looked _tired_.

“Dooooctorrr...” Bill’s metallic voice rang out. Unlike Missy, he couldn’t see her true form beneath. All he saw was the same as everybody else – steel.

“Hey Bill...” He replied gently, stabbing his stick into the ground as a third leg.

“One question.” She continued, falling into step beside the Doctor. “Who is she – to you?”

The Doctor felt as though he’d aged a thousand years since he and Bill last spoke. He swivelled the stick in his hand, considering the lies and truths on offer. Bill deserved truth, although he suspected that she’d known it from the start. Bill was his best student. “Everything.”

Bill let that sink in. It certainly explained his reckless delusion when it came to Missy. Only a fool in love would save a psychotic murderer from her justified fate. Worse, there were two versions of her in one reality. “I understaaaaand.”

The Doctor smirked, more at himself than Bill. “How could you understand?” He mused. “I don’t understand.”

If she wasn’t frightened of inadvertently killing him, she’d have thumped him on the back for being a knob. She wondered if all Time Lords were this stupid or if it was just them…

*~*~*

The sirens blared louder with each moment that passed. People panicked and suddenly Bill wasn’t even a novelty in the maelstrom. She trailed the Doctor through the house and into the cellars. The Doctor had a capacity for insensitivity that she’d suspected but not witnessed until he asked her to start cutting entrances in the walls like a talking blowtorch. _It was war_ , Bill understood but there were times – many times – when he looked at her and was unable to see past the mask.

The scream of children made the argument irrelevant. Bill stepped forward and, with barely any idea how to control the new weapon mounted above her head, did as he asked.

*~*~*

The Master jolted at the explosion and rush of fire outside the window. For a moment he stared into the flames. Watched them surge… Then he turned and continued pacing in opposition to Missy. She’d been pressing him relentlessly since they’d come back about his TARDIS – starting with a sharp dig at his shoulder blade with one of her painted claws.

“What’s gotten into you?”

The smoke and flame were dying outside the window, which Missy gestured to in answer to his question. “Time’s a ticking, dear.”

“It’s _my_ TARDIS.”

“ _Our_ TARDIS.” How could anyone be so selfish in regards to themselves? Missy wondered. These were new lows for her.

“And it’s right in the middle of a city full of Cybermen.” Which was not a crowd he wanted to face. He still had nightmares of ending up in one of their Cyber-factories. Terrible dreams… Bill never mentioned them but he knew that she heard him screaming in those ten years they spent together.

The siren roared through the glass windows. “Who are all coming here.”

“ _And_ it doesn’t work.”

Ah. The truth. At last. He’d broken it. “Because...”

_That_ was the tone he hated. Missy had picked it up from the Doctor’s lips sometime within the last hundred years or so. It made the Master feel like he was a naughty child getting caught for throwing rocks at the citadel just to see how high up he could dent the golden walls.

The Master stopped pacing and brought his hands together in a sort of prayer to the gods of foolery and chaos.  Maybe Missy was right. This was the last page and he had to come clean if either of them wanted to continue breathing. “ I landed here  and I had trouble taking off...”

Missy turned on him, eyes wide and alert. She could hear another explosion outside as the Mondasian farmers flexed their  power . “The black hole?”

“Too close to the event horizon...” He _hated_ that fucking hole in the sky. It had kept him prisoner for so long.

“And you screwed up.” _She screwed up._ “You went too fast.”

“I blew the de-materialisation circuit.”

_De-materialisation circuit._ Oh.  _Right._ Bloody hecking hell. For the longest time Missy had assumed it was a drunken joke she’d played on herself but there was always this lurking sense of dread around the item that kept her true to her word.

The smuggest of all predatory grins whipped the edges of her lips into a smile. Just this  _once_ she was going to enjoy the universe’s petty construct of ‘fate’.  “ Which reminds me. A funny thing happened to me once.”

T he Master  _did not_ like that look. It was like she was about to murder him and sell all his organs on the black market for a small fortune. “What?”  _Oh shit he was probably right!_ The Master panicked, as Missy lurched forward and snatched him by his collar. She walked him backwards until he slammed into a poorly placed pillar with an, ‘ _oomph_ !’ He had to double check that it really happened, glancing down at her manicured hand.

“A _very_ long time ago a _very_ scary lady threw me against a wall and made me promise to always _always_ carry a spare de-materialisation circuit.”

The Master bit his lip gently as she softened her attack, drawing  away slightly  where Missy’s hands flattened his jacket back down. He was aware of the hand anchored on the wall beside his head and the scent of her perfume which brought back memories he wouldn’t be able to keep for much longer.

“I may not remember much about her now but...” And the fact that Missy remembered herself at all gave her a moment of pause. She wondered what befell the other times they’d played this through for this was the first she’d decided to give herself this warning. He was watching her intently, she could tell. Maybe that’s why this worked… She had the attention of both his brain and his – well – whatever worked. “She must have made _quite_ an impression...”

He could not believe his eyes as Missy withdrew the tiny device from her clothes and held it between them. That felt a bit like cheating all of time and reality.  Well done them. “You know you  _basically_ have me-” his mind wandered momentarily as she leaned in even closer.  _Lounged._ Yes. That’s what she was doing. “-to thank for this.”

“You’re welcome...”

“By the way is it _wrong_ that I-” His eyes dropped between them. It wasn’t so long  ago that she’d been on her knees for him and he was having a rather hard time keeping that locked in the back of his mind.

Missy followed his meaning with rather predictable ease. She’d felt that problem growing. “Yes. _Very_.” She insisted firmly. Missy leaned slightly  away while he struggled to swallow his leer. “That’s why you like it.”

Their eyes met. His dark and hers clear. “You like it too.”

Missy slipped away, not trusting herself to reply.

He could not help but notice that she was still in possession of the device. “So – ah...” The Master had to swallow  _again_ to settle. “Are we off, then? Down to the TARDIS…”

Missy twirled the circuit between her fingers. “ I have to do something first.”

His sigh was heavy with exhaustion. “I thought you already said goodbye to loverboy?”

“That’s not it.”

*~*~*

Nardole met Bill in the corridor on her way up from the cellar. It was the heavy fall of boots that caught his attention. He’d waited for her to emerge from the stairs, sliding off his beanie and holding it in his paw as you would if someone died.

He’d forgotten how tall she was. Laying in the barn, he’d almost been able to believe that she was an advanced version of a benevolent computer but walking around she still exuded fear. That’s what Cybermen were made for. It was not her fault.

“Bill...” He said quietly, dipping his head.

“Naaardollle.”

His eyes closed for a moment. It hurt to hear the words cut across the room. “This – this is  _my_ fault.” Nardole fussed with his beanie. “I should have stopped them from dragging you along in the first place. It was always a bad idea. Taking Missy out for a spin? What nonsense was I thinking letting that happen?”

“ I aaagreeed.” Bill replied. It was not even Missy’s fault that she was dead. The blue-thing did that all on his own. Fatal accidents in the presence of the Doctor seemed more and more inevitable. She’d had a very long time to think it through with Razor – the Master… If what the Doctor said was true then even he had only pieced her back together from death. That first shot should have ended it all.

N ardole sighed, finding it hard to look into her void-like eyes. “No, Bill. You had no real idea what you were agreeing to. I’ve been around a few Time Lords now and they’re all reckless. They’ve lived so long that they forget what it means to be fragile. Every time they get a good knock they change their face and get right back up. In my case, at least, I can screw on a new part.” That’s when he realised, he’d never told her how he became an android in the first place. “You and me are not so different. I lost my head when I got mixed up with the Doctor and his Time Lord wife – not Missy. Another Time Lord. Then I lived as a huuuuge cyborg for a while, a lot like you only I was red and had to share my body with other heads. Anyway… What I mean is, this is a dangerous way to live and I’m sorry. I should have sat you down and told you everything. You might not have fancied the thrills so much.”

“Nooo.” Bill droned. “ I saaaw the staaaars.”

*~*~*

“Nardole?” Hazran asked, as he sulked out onto the verandah. She was holding a sawn off shotgun in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. If he’d still had all his parts he’d have found that rather arousing. Ah… The distant memory of a life of crime.

“I’m still getting used to Bill wandering around, that’s all.” He took the pre-offered tea.

“I bet she’s still getting used to it too...”

Nardole handed the cup back and sat himself down on the steps which were coated in fresh layers of mud from all the boots marching back and forwards. The whole farmhouse was boarded up and a four foot wall of sandbags stretched right the way around the front and back decks. Of course, a well placed energy blast would still set the whole thing on fire. “Have you seen the evil twins?”

She shook her head. “They vanished inside a while ago and I’ve not seen either since. Are you worried about them?”

“Worried they’ll scamper off, perhaps.”

“I don’t think there’s much chance of that happening, do you?”

“Oh, I certainly do. I think that’s the  _ most _ likely thing that’s going to happen. Why do you think I pressed the Master so hard to get this test version of the weapon finished?”

“You know what I think?” Hazran said, descending all of the steps so that she was standing on the mud in front of him, nearly level. “That you should come inside for a while. Take a break. There’s nothing else to be done until the fighting starts.”

*~*~*

There was only so much time that Missy could spend with herself before she went mad. She left the Master practising his eye-liner and headed  instead to her room. There wasn’t much in it to salvage so she sat on her unmade bed and twisted the short, silver blade over and over in her hands.

Was it murder or suicide? There was a question for the Time Lords. Not that they’d entertain the subject in any of their debates. She remembered the fear and anger she’d faced when they found out what she’d done the first time. This wasn’t much of a step, really. Cleaning house. A forced reset. It wasn’t even really murder…

_ Then why was she afraid for him? _ Because, if nothing else, it was an end.

A quiet knock at the door dragged her thoughts into the present. She tucked the blade into the bracelet beneath her shirt and coat, fixed her hair and finally replied, “Come in!”

Of all the faces to step through her door, she did not expect it to be Bill Potts.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> S O R R Y

Missy was smaller than Bill remembered, though it did not occur to Bill that her metallic body stood a full foot taller than her perished flesh. There were many terrible realities that she’d not given mind to. Lost futures and false hope that lurked in parts of her mind quietly erasing in the background. Sub-routines and ghost protocols that un-writ the subtleties. One day, very soon, it would finalise the change from human to machine. Mercifully the end was coming faster for the world than it was for her and so that particular horror waited in the shadows like the dark eye of the poisonousness star hovering over all their heads.

It was not only the Time Lord’s physical size that surprised Bill. There was a clarity in Missy’s eyes that she’d previously sensed but not seen. The waters ran deep and sad so much so that Bill could not help but drop her anger at the door and soften to pity. What else could be done? Revenge was immaterial when the person you intended to act it upon had nothing left to lose.

“You look at me differently to the others,” said Bill, as she closed the door. It was an odd alcove, cut off from the rest of the house and the outside world. Almost like a slip in time – same as the TARDIS.

Missy fussed a moment longer with the edge of her sleeve then dipped her head in a shallow nod. “I-” but the first breath of explanation needed a second to enforce it. “I see what they cannot.” Missy attempted to explain. “Call it a quirk of an imperfect process if you like,” she continued, shifting her gaze between the angular shadow that the lamps were making of Bill upon the floor and the softer human curves that she saw with her eyes, “but when I look at you, Bill – I see you as you were. The hideous scraps of clothes I can only assume are what you wore those ten years lived at the bottom of the ship unless Earth culture has lost its way entirely.”

The joke was weak but Bill admired the Time Lord for trying. It was more than the Doctor had managed. “What do you mean that you, ‘see me’?” Bill frowned, risking a step closer. There was no hint of a flinch in Missy.

“I mean what I mean.” Missy tried to make her understand. “Before, a week ago when you were in the barn you woke briefly.”

“What...” Bill was genuinely shocked.

“You did but the programming inside the Cyber-mind was in the process of a reset. It tried to erase your mind by taking your strongest memories – good and bad. That night you woke as a child and that is what I saw.”

“I don’t believe you...” Even as Bill said the words she knew they were a lie. Had she not seen herself as human when she’d first opened her eyes?

“Oh aye. A nest of dark frizz in a pair of pigtails to yer shoulders.” Missy gestured. “Little navy overalls and sneakers with pink laces.”

Bill gasped – a metal rasp that neither of them heard. Her hand covered her mouth. There was no way for Missy to know that. None at all. “And now?”

“Well I still say you look about ten but the Doctor tells me you’re at least fifty.”

The impossible, Bill laughed. Then, outside the farmhouse where neither of them could hear, a gentle rain patted against the shingles. “I’ve tried to tell him that’s not the case.”

Missy perked up a little. “So I am right?”

“You are closer, I will give you that.”

Silence. Bill surveyed Missy’s room. She’d not had much of a chance to come to terms with the farm house, though it seemed to be technologically behind the level she’d shared with Razor. _Razor._ What a strange stretch of her life that name represented. Ten years in a forced friendship built on lies where he was as much a prisoner as her. “Is it true that Razor is _you_?” Bill asked. “I mean, the Doctor explained it. Time Lords regenerate when they die and are reborn in that instant with new faces and that because of time laws or – whatever – you do not remember anything. I think I understand.”

“Yes...” Missy waited patiently for her question.

“I spent ten years with you.” Bill breathed. “That’s – that’s longer than I’ve spent with _anyone_ and I remember it. I remember the things that he – that _you_ told me.” Bill noticed a shade of unacknowledged panic. Creatures with secrets feared nothing more than the opportunity for them to be betrayed. “And I thought, I really _believed_ that you cared for me a little.”

“I am sure I did.” Missy said quietly, with no trace of hostility. Despite evidence to the contrary, she cared more often and deeper than she liked to admit.

“Then _why_?” Bill stepped forward as she spoke. The desperation in her voice made the flames inside the lanterns shudder. There was such pain in the accusation. “I’d rather you had killed me. Or allowed me to die as I should have done. Why – why did you choose _this_ as my fate? Was I not kind to you?”

“As kind as it was possible, I can only guess,” Missy nodded. “I am not an easy person to like.” Missy had to swallow something dangerously close to emotion as she faced the human. What was it about this race that kept tearing strips out of Time Lord hearts? The Doctor was a fool to keep them around. They were quick to die and break. All they amounted to were sorrowful sparks in the dark – like stars going out. “Won’t you sit?”

“Not until you answer me. I am not angry. I should be but I’m not. All I want is for you to be honest.”

As she would not sit, Missy did not either. “There was no lie in what the Doctor told you, I cannot remember a thing from those ten years, nor do I remember setting foot on this spaceship before now. The rules of Time and how they interact with memory are imprecise and poorly plotted because, by their very nature, they are difficult to study. I have this hole in my life as though I were struck on the head and woke from a daze. All I know is that _this_ situation here always happens and that the Master – Razor, to you – walks out of it alive, somehow.”

“He lives because you’re here.” Bill followed that much. “That is all well and good but-”

“-but why did he throw you to the butchers?” Missy instantly regretted her choice of callous words. Old habits. “He has not told me but I have two theories – though I confess I cannot decided which is worse. Either he did it as a punishment for the Doctor and more particularly me, to ruin any chance I may have had at redemption and perhaps even a measure of happiness.”

“Or?”

“Or he really _did_ care for you over those years and it was the start of a reformation inside his heart. Destroying you, so completely, was the only way he could kill the change and deny that he’d felt the spark of empathy which he despises so fervently.”

If there was one thing Bill gleamed from Missy in this moment it was that she was disgusted with her younger self. “I believe it to be both of those things.”

“All the worse.” Missy looked away and suddenly became absurdly fascinated with the shadows playing on the wood. Facing the truth about her past was just another terror that laid in wait for her. All her ghosts had come to play at once. “If I could take it back I would.”

Bill looked at Missy for a very long time before she replied. “I believe you.” Then, she turned to the bed and decided to cross the room and lower herself down onto it. The wood groaned with the weight of the cyber-body but Missy did not seem to notice, at least Bill could see no evidence of it in her look as she sat beside her. “You have a daughter.”

Missy was shocked. “Did he tell you that?”

Bill shook her head. “No. He did not. I guessed a few times that he might have been a father once but I remember you from the barn. I think.” Everything in her mind was confused. She remembered other things as well – words mostly. “It’s not the barn in my memory but I remember someone sitting with me on the day my mother died. She looked just like you and I think it must have been you all along.”

“Yes. I had a daughter.” The admission was dragged from her throat, by no means easily.

“...had...”

A well of moisture pooled at the base of Missy’s eyes spilled over the edge and dripped a set of tears down her cheeks. She wiped them away immediately, embarrassed. “She died, a very long time ago.”

“He cried as well.” Bill admitted. “When he did not think I was looking.”

That startled Missy. There were times when she feared her former self had lost the capacity to acknowledge any emotion at all and even harder to be true to it. “That is something, I guess.”

“ I am not an idiot,” Bill cleared her throat. Her tone was firm but not unkind. “I know full well that what has been done to me can never be undone. If, by some miracle, we survive what’s coming for us it will only be a brief reprieve for me. I can feel the software in my mind. It tears at the edge – consuming part of me. Any memory I do not visit – or thought I fail to hold onto is taken. I mark this by their absence. What’s lost to me already I could not tell you. It’s why I asked the Doctor to make sure that it’s ended before I convert into something I detest. I’d do it now but I might yet be of use.”

“I dare say you are right on that account.” And brave. Why did they always have to be _that_?

“So I will not rage at you.” Bill insisted. “Or seek revenge on the Master. I’ll not even sulk at the Doctor.”

“What will you do?”

“I want you to tell me the story of you and the Doctor. The true one.” She added, when another spell of fear clouded Missy’s eyes. “If you owe it to anyone, you owe it to me.”

“I wish I could say that you were wrong,” Missy replied, with trembling voice, “but you’re not.” Despite everything that Bill had endured, her eyes were kind. “Before I do, I’ll say this. If I had ever been inclined towards taking in a stray, as the Doctor does, I may have considered you. Briefly of course. Then dismissed the notion as absurd.”

It felt like forever since Bill had managed it but she smiled now – broadly and from her mind rather than her body. As compliments went with Missy, that one was colossal. “Pets are too much trouble.”

“Too right.” Missy wasn’t sure she had the strength to honour Bill’s request but she was going to try. Perhaps it would be a relief for someone else to know. All this time it had just been her and the Doctor and stars know he barely gave her a moment of comfort.

Missy found that she needed to stand for this. She left the bed and started to circle the room, pacing. “Most of what you know and have guessed is true. The Doctor and I were childhood friends. Even by Earth standards we were young when we met. Boys.  We went to the academy together and became young men, both of us disagreeable to the other Time Lords in our own way. He was stupid and curious. I was clever and stubborn. Together we were a perfect storm. You’re smiling, why?”

“I can’t smile.”

“You are,” Missy assured her. “What matter. You’ve guessed the rest.”

“You were more than friends.”

Missy nodded. “Yes. I suppose we were. Foolish as he was, Theta wanted to take me to see the stars.”

“Theta?”

Missy bit her lip. That she had not meant to share. “That is his real name. We both lied to you before.”

“I wish I could say I was surprised. What’s yours?”

Where was the harm? “Koschei.” Missy replied. “The Doctor and Master came later but that is a story for a different time.  We have Gallifreyan names but humans cannot understand them. Anyway, we decided we wanted a child.”

“Woah… Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. It’s just… This is like listening to your parents you – not that you’re my – I’m going to stop. And be quiet.” Bill pursed her lips shut.

Missy had enough grace to allow a little colour to rise to her cheeks. Bill was right. It was an absurd thing to decide. “Time Lords are grown. It’s complicated but all you need to understand is that natural born children among Time Lords are forbidden. When we decided we wanted a child we specifically meant _a real child_. One that was _ours_. Not grown but born. We may as well have wished for the all the stars to go out.”

Bill was trying to follow and did not wish to ask impolite questions but… “Wouldn’t that mean that...”

Missy nodded. “It can happen at random during the regeneration process. There was a chance that as time went on one of us might eventually wake as a woman but we were dreadfully impatient.”

“I’ve no trouble imagining that.”

“Other Time Lords manage to master the change and control it but neither of us were a very good study when it came to it. Besides, why bother when there was already a way to ensure it?”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“I think you do.” Missy stopped pacing for a moment. She placed her hand on the oil filled glass of a lantern, letting the warmth seep through into her skin.

Bill eyed Missy more seriously than before. She’d never imagined the past between her and the Doctor could be so stained and poisonous. She wasn’t sure what she’d  envisioned , sitting on the roof of the university while the Doctor crooned of his friend but it was not this. His romantic notions were concealing a violent truth. “You  _ didn’t _ .”

Missy swallowed but kept her eye on the flame as she spoke. “Well it was never going to be  _ him  _ now was it, dear? ” She admitted. “He’s frightened of the dark. So… I took the knife and we sat there in the long red grass at the edge of my father’s estate. I laid in his arms, watching night fall over the dunes until the moonlight turned them silver and I fell asleep.” Missy paused. She remembered that night with the misshapen moons and his tears. How stupid they were to tempt the universe thus.

“And – and when you woke up,” Bill stumbled over her words, trying to be delicate. She could not believe what they had done and what the Doctor had allowed. They must have been very different back then. Or perhaps she did not know the Doctor at all. How much of his life was a secret? Was  _ all of it _ a lie? “You looked like  _ this _ ?”

Missy let her hands slide away from the glass as she turned. “No indeed. I’ve had many faces in the thousands of years since that night. I-” Missy closed her eyes and pictured that time. “I had hair like the sands of Gallifrey – deep, burned orange and a set of green eyes.” She opened hers and found Bill staring in wonder. “Unusual,” she explained, “even by Gallifreyan standards.  There was no hiding me or what we’d done after that. ”

“ I imagine not.  And then...”

“Soon after.” Missy nodded, sparing Bill the tales of sordid passion. She did not, for one moment, regret the sacrifice she’d made that night. With it she had purchased her fondest memories and she’d not trade them for anything. “True born Time Lord children take on the genetics of their parents, just like human children. The rest are grown in a loom. We had a little girl with hair like mine and eyes like his.” A tiny smile as the edge of her lip curled in fondness, “Except they were a pair of emeralds with which she could stare down the world.” Then Missy breathed something Bill couldn’t quite hear.

“What was her name?” Bill asked innocently.

Missy had to catch the ledge with her hand.

“S-sorry. Was that rude?” Bill feared that she’d offended her terribly with the question.

Missy shook her head  and spoke the word in Gallifreyan. “It means, ‘the morning light’.” Missy’s knuckles turned white as she gripped the tiny ledge that ran the length of the room. To be telling anyone this, especially a human, after all this time… She almost wished that she could stop but the words were leaking from her lips as if from a wound. Either it would kill her or make the pain a little easier to bear. Outside, the rain fell heavier.

“So you and the Doctor – you are parents?”

“Or we  _ were _ .” Missy corrected. “It wasn’t only a scandal, you see. My father he tried to protect us. We stayed in the house and raised her there but other Time Lords conspired. Had she been just another breach of Time Lord protocol they might have left us alone – banished us from the academy and left it there but the Doctor...” Missy wasn’t even sure if she could find a way to say the rest. It was the only secret deeper than this and no matter how many years passed in hatred of him, she’d never told a soul.

“You don’t have to tell me.” Bill said quietly.

“I  _ can’t _ tell you.” Missy corrected her. “Except to say that he is a little different and that difference manifested in our daughter. They feared her and simultaneously ached for what she might know. It was something that we could not protect her from.”

“ Missy – I’ve changed my mind. You don’t have to-”

“It happened one night.” It was as if Missy couldn’t even see Bill any more. Her mind was somewhere else. She was staring at the lantern as though it were the sinking sun, caught beneath the edge of Gallifrey’s horizon, forever out of sight in a night that replayed over and over in her mind. She was trapped there, with the long grass to her waist and the shadow of her father’s manor in the distance. “We’d been out, the Doctor and I. Politics on Gallifrey were running hot and we were controversial enough to be dragged into the fray. Even now I wonder if that was a rouse from the start to draw us away.”

Missy felt quiet for a moment and Bill did not dare rush her. She’d long suspected there was some darkness between the Doctor and her – ever since she’d seen Missy sitting in the cage inside the vault. There was more to it than the Doctor redeeming a psychopath. The way he’d hesitated before he opened the door that day – pressing his crinkled hand against it as though it were a living heart. She’d wondered then if Missy was his wife but she’d severely misjudged the depths of despair washing between their ancient faces.

“ The Doctor and I were walking back across the field when we saw the house aflame. It burned so bright – it was as though another star had been born beneath the mountains. Then the Doctor took my hand and we ran for our lives toward the inferno. When we hit the gravel drive his feet slid against the stone and his hands wrapped around my waist, pulling me back. I remember feeling as if I might snap in half he held so tight. Above us there was another light in the fire. It flickered on and off. Living and dying over and over amid the roar of the flame.  A tiny Time Lord, trying to survive. Twelve times and then nothing.” Missy lost her voice entirely for a moment. She did not cry. That kind of pain was beyond any veil of tears. She was simply absorbed by the imag e of the last shimmer of gold.

Bill cried. With her hand over her mouth the rain poured over the farm so fiercely that it voiced itself as a quiet drone in the background. “M-Missy...”

“I escaped his hold,” Missy choked up the rest of the story, “and ran into the flames before he could stop me. I didn’t get far but I tried. You can’t understand the heat… It pushes you back like a wall. Even as it ruined me I tried to reach her but I couldn’t… I couldn’t...”

“Missy – it’s not your fault...”

“The Doctor pulled me out and I changed my face again, right there in his arms and then we watched the house fall to ash along with everything that we were to each other. You can’t come back from that. He – he left and married again, several times with other proper children to replace the one we lost and I swore I’d never take this form again.” Missy slowly moved back to the bed where Bill sat and took her place beside her. There were imagined tears down her cheeks so Missy lifted her hand and wiped them away. She was shocked to find her fingers wet. That wasn’t possible. Cybermen did not cry.

“The Doctor still loves you,” Bill said quietly, watching as Missy rubbed the tear between her fingers as the Doctor had done. If she had questions, Missy kept them to herself. “I know he does. He is different with you. The way he talks about you… I don’t think that died completely.”

“It does not matter one way or the other.” Missy replied. “This is the end of our story. I only wish that I could have returned to Gallifrey one last time. I’ve something I have to do – a chapter to close on those that orchestrated that night.”

“Wait...” Bill’s mind was a bit slow but there were pieces falling into place that she was trying to catch up with. “You took female form again.” Bill shifted slightly. “And the Master is the face before this one. From what you’ve just told me either it was an improbably statistical accident or…  o r...”

“Keep that last part to yourself.”

Bill knew that she was right the minute Missy locked eyes with her.


	25. Chapter 25

_ That was probably a mistake, _ Missy reflected irritably.  She eyed the closed door through which Bill had left but there was nothing  except the reflection of lamp light  fading on the veneer. Truth and admissions were all well and good but these were revelations offered in the spirit of despair – gifted straight into a Cyber-mind. One day, very soon, Bill’s memories would be reunited with the hive. It was absurd foolery to pour her soul into the treacherous dead. A mistake which the Doctor was unlikely to copy. No, it had not escaped Missy’s notice how cool he’d turned to ward his companion. Since Bill’s resurrection  the Doctor had kept his emotional cards close to his chest.  Retracted into his shell. Cruel – certainly but definitely smart.

M issy ran her hand over the crumpled bedding. There was no point wasting her last hours dwelling on the irreversible. Regret changed nothing. Neither did lingering. As long as everyone on the ship died  at the close her secrets would be filed away in oblivion. There was comfort in that – albeit horrific.

She’d lost the stomach for revelling in horror.

Missy lifted her  other  hand and rubbed her fingers together. They were wet from Bill’s tears, glistening on the pads of her fingertips.  _ Tears. _ Not human tears. No r was it Cyberman oil. So what were they? A malfunction? That didn’t seem right. If there was one thing Missy knew it was the ins and outs of Cyber technology – this was foreign.  Dare she say –  _ alien _ .

Missy was still  inspecting her fingers when the door groaned. It did not surprise her at all when Nardole barged into the room with the courtesy of a knock. That bloody android had so little regard for privacy that Missy got the impression he was the product of a cheapskate penitentiary system. After all, the Doctor had been  _ quite evasive  _ when she’d asked pointed questions about Nardole’s origin. She doubted his reluctance to answer was solely because he’d inherited the bundle of bolts from the dead wife  that he pretended not to have.

_ River Song. _ Now there was a topic-and-a-half that decades in the vault hadn’t managed to touch on.

“ Pissing down outside, you know?” Nardole bellowed in complaint, dusting the remnants of rain off his jacket. He’d trampled all the mud off his boots somewhere on the level below but there was enough of it left clinging to the hem of his pants to make them sag. It was accompanied by bits of grass and a long shard of ochre wheat.  Hazran might make a farmer out of him yet.

“Between the black hole and  a growing Cyberman civilisation below,  this ship ha s sustained a significant  amount of  damage.  I’m surprised it  doesn’t rained all the time.”  Missy shrugged. “It’s probably sprung a leak – or  it’s in the process or tearing itself apart.”  W ith the Doctor’s TARDIS first on the black hole’s menu.. . “ Beyond that, c an I help you?”  Nardole was, after all, in her roo m. “Unless you really have come to chat about the weather.”

Nardole shifted his weight from side to side. He wasn’t quite sure how to say,  _ ‘I saw Bill leave your room and thought I’d check on you...’ _ without the Time Lord  unscrewing his head, dissolving it in acid and selling the skull to an intergalactic antiques road show so he opened with, “Aren’t you meant to be minding Junior?”

“ Just make sure you never let him hear you call him that.” Missy  snapped , then added  more gently , “He’s cooling his heels… And a few other things. I do my best with him but you can’t expect me to endure that level of crazy all the time. Especially sober. It’s a little too much self-indulgence, even for me.”

Nardole wasn’t entirely sure he followed  her lead  but he was absolutely certain he didn’t want any more detail. Time Lords were weird. Fucking nuts. To think that there was a whole planet of them out there somewhere… He blinked slowly at Missy as she trailed off, lost in thoughts that seemed to settled on the flame of a nearby oil lamp. He was tempted to offer up a witty dig  in favour of her misfortune but she seemed to be genuinely frustrated by the Master. “It’s going to kick off soon,” he continued instead. “Hazran’s moving the children into the tunnels. We’ll start putting them in the lifts as soon as the Cybermen converge on the farm.  It’ll be safer then. Well – safe as we can get.  If you were to ask me I’d say it’s all a bit of a waste of time but nobody does so I do what I’m told.”

“You stay with them, Nardole.” Missy insisted firmly. “When the Time Lords bow out of this one  those Mondasian runts are going to need someone to look after them.”

Nardole was starting to doubt _his own doubts_ that Missy held some kind of genuine affection – or at least responsibility – for their survival. Frankly, it was unnerving. At least he knew where he stood with her before when he thought she was a murderous psychopath. This entire experience had blurred the lines. “I’m sure the Doctor will keep an-”

“Listen to what I’m saying to you,  you stupid conglomerate of plastic! ” Missy interrupted  harshly. Nardole dipped his head. As his hand touched to door handle, Missy  took another breath . “I would not have  disconnected your head. Not really.” She  added . “I certainly fantasised about it but you can’t punish people for their desires.  We have no control over them. Like dreams.  And it’s not my fault that you’ve a few very useful parts inside that shell. ”

Despite himself, Nardole felt a smirk build. They’d shared a lot of antagonism. Endured each other’s mutual dislike and yet… Well, he’d be sorry for her to die – if that is what her heavy handed hints were directed toward. There. He’d said it. He didn’t want Missy to die despite it being the best thing for the continued survival of the universe. The Doctor needed his counterbalance. That, against all odds, was Missy. “Thank you – I _think_.  I am encouraged to hear you fantasised about me.”

“Nardole...”

He turned back towards her against his remaining skerrick of judgement. “Yes, Missy?”

“Did you hate me entirely?”

He frowned. What an odd question for a Time Lord  continuously  posturing  herself as above the embarrassing wave of human opinion.  Her heart was more fragile than that.  _ Made of glass _ , the Doctor had said once.  That’s why he’d wrapped her in hope and locked her in a vault,  placating her with tea and violent tales . “It may surprise you to learn  _ Oakdown _ ,” he used her real name, much to Missy’s shock.  H e wasn’t an idiot and he had ears. The Doctor muttered to himself  _ very loudly _ . It was a wonder the entire universe  wasn’t privy to  his secrets. “I never hated you. You  _ frustrated _ me, I’ll not deny and on some occasions you genuinely terrified myself and others but  _ hate _ ? No. You were always too interesting to hate.”

There was a long, comfortable silence between them in which Missy thought about saying many things to the android but she couldn’t find the words for any of it. She’d overspent her honesty quota for the day and Nardole was out of empathy. “I still think you look like an egg.”

“Indeed.” Nardole was relieved at her callous humour. “Need anything before the apocalypse?”

“Cup of tea wouldn’t go amiss.”

“If you go back downstairs and look in on the young-en I’ll rustle up some tea.”

“You don’t make tea for _him_.” She meant ‘the Doctor’.

“You asked _nicely_ ,” Nardole explained. “Never hurts, you know, to say something nice once in a while. Even if everything has gone to shit.”

“I’ll remember that.”

*~*~*

“Bury all the bodies?”

“Beg your pardon?” Missy side-eyed the Master. He was by the window in the downstairs room, fussing with his eye-liner – which if he went fishing for an opinion she’d certainly have no trouble informing him that if he continued this way he’d end up looking like a pirate – which was an aesthetic that made her eyes roll involuntarily.

“Well it was more interesting than asking if you’d packed.” Or if she was fucking something. He couldn’t tell what went on in her mind. It was as if he didn’t know himself at all. Could vast chasms of time _really_ alter one’s perspective so much that he’d become unrecognisable? It was like dying. Regeneration. The death of personality as final as a heartbeat. Everything that he was now had vanished from Missy’s eyes. If there were ever flickers of him they were the dying embers of the last coals.

“Oh – right.” Though she offered nothing else. “What was it like?”

“What was  _ what _ like?” The Master asked, dabbing under his eye with his fingertip where he’d left a dark shadow.

“Ten years on a ship with nothing to do.”

“Are you losing it?” The Master glanced in her direction. “Reflective monologues are the first sign of an unravelling mind. Very bad sign, my dear.”

“How is this a monologue? I asked _you_ the question.”

“We’re the same person ergo this is-”

Missy closed her eyes to drown him out. Her headache surged back into her forehead and started to pulse.

The Master decided to indulge  Missy , mostly to hurt her. “ It was a great deal more than ten years.” He admitted. “And every single one of them  w as boring as the next. You don’t truly appreciate how  _ slow _ human evolution is until you’re forced to watch it, hour by hour.  Slugs crawling about with a few lonesome brain cells. I’ve seen grass grow with more self awareness than the Mondasian Cybernetics programme.”

“Is that when we wrote,  _ ‘The Rise and Fall of Gallifrey’ _ ? Only I found it in the library and couldn’t recall having a spare half a century.”

He stopped applying his make-up and swivelled around on the window sill. “Does it matter?”

“Maybe.”  Missy understood that the Master was nuanced, something that he was rarely given credit for. Most of  his lunacy was an act, worked into a frenzy whenever the Doctor showed his face but when the eyes of the universe stopped watching he could be quite reflective. His fascination with periods of his personal history formed the  foundation of Missy’s empathy. Whatever he’d spent his time doing in secret trapped on this spaceship had turned the tide  of her moral compass . “And Bill?”

“What about the robot?”

“You tossed her into an abattoir. Was it solely to take vengeance on me? I mean, I realise we’re petty but are we  _ that _ pathetic?”

“I don’t approve of what you do in your regeneration yet you don’t see me picking you apart over it. Have a little courtesy and return the favour.”

“Interesting… You’re angry.” Missy brushed off his attack. “You did care  about Bill .”  _ Like she’d cared about countless humans she’d casually tossed into Death’s arms.  _ “Well congratulations, you’ve found the only human  in existence that’s not interested in retaliation.”

“ _ Sorry  _ but did I miss something? What’s brought on this bout of curiosity?”

“I’m considering travelling with you – shouldn’t I be curious?”

The Master couldn’t extend his frown lines any further. “Not when the object of your curiosity is  _ yourself _ . Really, Missy… I know I said I was worried about you before but now I’m starting to think I should have worried more.”

“I’m not the one who’s been applying eye-liner for half an hour.”

“ Now  _ t hat _ was petty.”

They were interrupted by Nardole carrying  in two mugs of tea. He handed the first to Missy – who dipped her head in silent thanks and then thrust the second on the Master who once again professed his dislike of tea. After Nardole left, the Master sniffed the hot liquid and started sipping it. Honestly… Missy was certain her younger self was contrary purely for the sake of it.

“ We can’t stick around. I hope you know that.” The Master added, nose in his mug. “Stalling for time will get you nowhere  when there’s none to be had. Not even Time Lords can make a minute out of a second .”

“I realise that, thank you – I’m not an idiot.” Missy snapped. “Just hush up a moment and let me enjoy my tea.”

“I hope you’re not going to be like this all the time.”

“Like  _ what _ ?”

“Serious.” The Master hissed.

“I only seem that way from the depths of your immaturity.”

“ You even  _ sound _ like him.”

“ We always sound like him.”

_ Smash. _ The Master’s mug obliterated itself on the pillar beside Missy’s head, coating her right side in tea. Calmly, she set her own mug down, stood up and let the liquid run off her clothes  like rain.

The Master faced the window and pressed his forehead against the glass. If he closed his eyes he could hear the footsteps of the Cybermen on their way through the forest. He’d lived with that sound, worse than any drums, for so long they’d become a part of his nightmares.

“ How can you not remember, Missy?” He kept his eyes closed, embracing the darkness. “That’s  _ not _ how intersecting time lines work and you know it. There’s something else going on here.”

Yes. She knew  that as well . She’d thought of little else since seeing his face. “I’m not lying, if that is what you’re getting at.”

“Obviously. I can tell when you lie.”

“Then you’re the only one who could possibly answer the question. You still have your memories.”

“I can’t.”

“ Can’t tell me or can’t answer?”

“You  _ can’t _ tell?”

No. No Missy had no idea if the Master was lying to her and she suspected neither did he  but there was a third hand in their lives.

*~*~*

With a door of the Doctor’s past kicked open, Bill could see the truth of it writ in his face, clear as the metal covering hers. The pain was woven into him, aging his stoic façade by a few thousand years. It was so clear that Bill wondered how she’d never noticed it before. The closest she could compare the revelation was to a magic eye upon learning its trick. From that point on you could never un-see it. Well, she’d never un-see the pain that linked those two.

The squeak of a rocking chair against the dusty hardwood floorboards clashed with the unfamiliar barrel of a shotgun in the Doctor’s hands and gave Bill pause. She’d completely lost the ability to tell if he was changing into something else or receding to his past. This wasn’t one of his lessons. He was just _existing_ in the moment. The fact that this manifest as a disturbing throw back to an Earth-Western would have raised Bill’s eyebrow had she still owned one to raise.

“Listen – ah...” Bill started, as she crossed the verandah and leaned against the pile of sand bags. There were so many things that she wanted to tell him. Things that _ought_ to be said. “I don’t suppose-” but the ground shook beneath them and a volley of Cybermen launched themselves into the sky, like meteors in reverse.

Never any time.

He joined her at the edge of the verandah where they stared up at the night as a death knell chimed. Ominous tolls of a call to war. This was it. The final page of the last book. Their end. Dying should have bothered Bill more than it did but then most of her was already buried – this was the last pieces catching up.

Nadole and Hazran emerged from the farmhouse with a few children in tow. They looked to the sky as well, then to each other and finally to the frightened faces of the kids. Emotions were muted by the irrepressible urge to survive. Hope, in its most fragile whisper, held a veil over them as the Doctor shook off his silence and handed the shotgun to Hazran. He replaced it with his walking stick.

_He looked like a wizard_ , thought Bill.

“How about humanity’s first weapon?” The Doctor held up a glistening red apple to one of the children. Its perfect crimson skin looked like it was forged in a Cyber-factory. Knowledge. A lie. A weapon. Both or neither – it didn’t matter. Poetic gestures aside, now was the time to die.

*~*~*

Although the Master hadn’t snatched the device out of her hand, Missy wasn’t entirely sure she’d given it to him freely. He brought it up to the light. Missy could have sworn that all the emotional progress they’d made in the past week was unravelling. The Master was done playing games and she’d run out of excuses to delay his escape. It was time to leave and, even as the Master wandered outside into the ethereal twilight, Missy wasn’t certain that she could carry through with her plan.

Odd.

Considering logic demanded that this had already happened – that it _had to happen_ because she existed. Choice and free will were a mockery. That should have brought her confidence. Instead, it left her sad. She had no memory of what stretched out before her. There – there was her certainty... Again and again, it played out the same. He died. She lived.

“Wait – wait...” Missy caught the Master’s sleeve as the door to the farmhouse closed behind them. “We should say goodbye to him at least. We owe him that.” Missy could hear the pleading in her own voice. She wanted to see the Doctor one last time. Maybe he’d stop her…

A confusing mix of compassion and curiosity dipped the Master’s head in a nod. He untangled himself from her embarrassing hold. “I’d like to see the look on his face, I guess, when _you_ choose your survival over his pious morality. One last good stab in the heart. Besides, I bet you’d be unbearable for the next century if you don’t get this out of your system.”

Missy strolled over to the stone barrier that looked as though it had been built by an entirely different, extinct culture and laid herself over it. She repressed the feeling that she’d relinquished something important into the Master’s care. There was every chance that he’d fly away before she could finish the job. This was a risk but what was life but _risk_? Is that not what she’d told the Doctor, all those years ago…? She could barely focus the memory. Knife in hand. The sweep of desert wind at their neck. _‘Risk…_ _Theta. We’re all falling.’_

The Master sat down on the other side of the stone column, careful not to nick his suit on the sharp outcrop. He could hear the Cybermen landing in the forest – scattering themselves around the farm as they prepared for the assault. Taking their time. That was the worst thing about those metal boxes. They wasted that which was precious.

They both heard the Doctor’s approach via the tap of his walking stick against the floor. Missy closed her eyes and bathed in the pale light, one hand on her stomach while her hair was kicked up by a familiar breeze. She let the Master rabbit on in confrontation, not entirely trusting herself to speak. There was a real danger she’d throw herself into the Doctor’s arms and refuse to let go – or simply run. Running had its appeal. She’d learned that from the Doctor. It was only when real desperation filtered into the Doctor’s words that she sat up and set her gaze on the pair of them. The Master wore shock like the Doctor wore fear.

She gripped her sonic umbrella.

_Hopelessness._ It radiated out of his sad eyes. A few short words and the Master had him dangling on the edge.

“I know,” the Doctor bellowed, “and?!”

The Doctor’s vulnerability rippled through Missy’s bones. Weakness made him _angry_. They weren’t good for each other… She could see that from the outside. Bickering. Snapping. Prodding and resentment. It ended in despair, every time. Missy could remember dying in the Doctor’s arms, refusing to regenerate purely out of spite. She’d longed, in those years, to drag the tears from the Doctor’s eyes by inflicting at least a fraction of the pain she’d endured at his indifference. Not any more. She’d _changed._ But the Doctor hadn’t changed her. Time achieved what reason could not.

“Come on, ‘Lady Version’.”

Missy heard herself beckoned like a pet. She allowed it only to serve the Master’s vanity.

“I really don’t know what you see in him.” The Master added, as he slid off the stone step, dusted his arse and wandered off to the side without so much as a second look.

Missy’s feet hit the ground but her eyes locked straight on the Doctor’s. She felt every one of her three thousand years today. Their endless battles raged and died. The love they pretended to hold flickered in a dying breath, smothered by the Master’s indifference and the Doctor’s barely held rage. With the Master in the mix, she felt the bedrock between them _shift._

“Likewise...” Missy hissed at the Doctor. What _did_ the Doctor see in her, for all those years? Why did he keep coming back to drink at the fountain of nightmares… She understood less now than when she’d opened this set of eyes on the world. Love did not mean what she’d imagined. Love meant – she didn’t know what love meant. Maybe it didn’t mean anything at all. She thought back to the laser screwdriver and the leap of faith she’d taken in his mercy. Missy held that look for as long as she dared. Tempting the Doctor to challenge her with an answer.

He didn’t and she walked.

_Free._ Missy relished the moment. She’d escaped without tears or screaming. All that was left was to walk her younger self to the lift and…

“No!”

His shout echoed through the eerily dead world. Missy flinched. The Master barely noticed.  There his claws were, dragging her back.

“ _Nooooo!”_

Missy heard that one in her soul. It caught in her rib cage and crashed against both of her hearts. She forced herself to keep walking, matching pace with the Master. It was hard to hear the Doctor scream especially when it sounded so much like his screams from that night…

“When I say, ‘no’ you turn back around. Hey!” The Doctor continued, still believing that the rules of their past encounters bore any relevance to today. He didn’t understand that there were no rules at the end.

The Doctor’s hand brushed around Missy’s elbow as he rushed  by , pushing himself in front of their path.  When he started raving Missy realised her greatest fears were about to play out.  _He was going to do this. He was going to beg…_ And he did – in his own way. Well, there was her proof that he’d believed her lies. They’d agreed that she’d go and yet, here at the final gasp, he couldn’t let them do it… He didn’t want to die alone  _and he didn’t trust her enough to realise that she wouldn’t let him_ .

So he pleaded. Raged. Begged. Reasoned. All with a Time Lord who had no patience for any of the sentiment. Yet he never saw her listening, off to the side with tears threatening at her eyes. The only thing he was achieving was to hurt her further and she was struck by the urge to push him away and shut his words out. How was she to hold onto the strength for what followed?  _I’ll see you again,_ she wanted to whisper.  _Let me go. Let me go…_

_Stop._

The Master leered in and hissed his farewell then strode off into the thickening darkness where the lights of the ship wavered between daylight and moonlight, broken by the violent incursion of the Cybermen.  Missy went to follow – tried to step  to the side but the Doctor blocked her path  with a whisper of her name as though it were his last breath. Why did he have to be like this?  So – so  _human._

“Missy – I know you’ve changed...”

Changed… No. They’d returned to the beginning. She longed to lay in his arms once more – bury her head against his neck and whisper all the things that lovers needed to say toward the end. All she could manage was a slight scoff which he didn’t  buy for a moment.

“I _know_ you have and I know what you’re capable of. Stand with me. _It’s all I’ve ever wanted._ ”

The bastard. Why did he do this now?

There was no way for her to say, ‘yes’. Yes was a signature on their death warrant. Yes was a promise she could not keep.

“Me too...” Her voice shook with barely held back words.

Give her back to the Daleks. Leave her to their torture. Anything but this. This wasn’t what she wanted. If they were to die, did it have to be in lies? Better it be silence with assumed truth. Or hope. She’d take hope.

As if on cue, his hand raised toward her. Beckoning in the gap between them. She felt herself lean toward it. _How she longed to take hold._ She’d take his hand anywhere and run all the way to the stars. But not today. To take his hand now was to abandon him and she’d not do that. Never again. Missy lifted her hand in denial. “But _no_. Sorry. Just-”

She couldn’t do it.

Missy had to give him something to keep herself from breaking. “No...” but in a fit of mercy she reached across the distance and gripped his wrist, latching sharply onto the bandage and grasping his flesh as though he were her only lifeline to sanity. Missy pulled him in, tugged the Doctor towards her at the same time she took a hesitant step in his direction. She could feel the thunder of his hearts through his palm and the stirring of time energy beneath the layers of fabric.

If he was thinking of adding a declaration, the Doctor was silenced by the brush of a blade against his skin. It was then that the decided to let her go. There were no more pleas. When Missy slipped away he kept his peace and did nothing but watch as she crossed the field and vanished into the shadow of the forest. He didn’t move, even after Missy had gone.

He would never see her again.

The Doctor _knew it_ but that was okay because he didn’t have another sunrise either.


	26. Chapter 26

It takes _ages_ for a Time Lord to die.

A morbid quirk of Rassilon’s genetic foreplay. This is what happened when a god-like figure blind sighted by life, forgot the inevitability of death. Death was real. It lingered at the fringe of their heart beats – the moment of pause between each one.

Missy did not curse the pain. It was the last grasp of life and she embraced every screeching moment of agony as she lay, motionless, on the forest floor.

How many times had she been here, flirting with the abyss? A prisoner of encroaching silence. Consciousness drawn thin. Pieces of her mind breaking off and floating away like bergs in the frozen seas of planets whose names she forgot.

More than most.

She deserved this end but her death refused to come. Leaves scraped across her face. Bark stuck in her back, piercing through her corset. Strands of her dark hair tangled up in the nightmare of forest, clutching desperately at the foliage that surrounded her. She knew how it felt – clinging to something as fragile and hopeless as herself.

The remainder of her time energy swirled madly through her flesh, trying against all logic to repair what the Master had done in a moment. _What Theta had allowed._ If anything killed her _it was that_ _knowledge_ _._ She’d been a prize fool to trust in his sentiment. Time Lords were above the chaos of snivelling emotion for a reason. Placing faith in love left you broken, dying in the dirt of someone else’s world.

Spaceship.

Black hole…

Bloody _hell_ – she was never going to die. This would drag on and on – a breath at a time – falling forever as reality bent in on itself. They might already be there with the universe gushing around them in a blur. Wouldn’t that be something? An eternal death in a quirk of time.

She tried to turn her head to the side but her body had her locked in limbo. Only her tears were free. They built, rising in domes over her eyes before they tumbled over the edge, drowning the leaves below in salt rain. The skies above remained clear. A shade of blue that didn’t exist on any planet.

Missy looked above to the hush of the forest. It shivered, rustling as the machinisms of war thundered beyond her view, climaxing in the occasional rise of fire in the sky. The Doctor was amongst them. She tried to imagine him vaulting through the deluge, waving his screwdriver around like an idiot. A good man in the depths of war – or a morally ambiguous creature slaughtering to purchase time. Either way, Missy warmed at the thought. She couldn’t hold it… Her mind. It wasn’t able to keep together. This must be what an echo felt like – unravelling until it looped back on itself. Repeating. Fading.

_A rush of light eclipsed the sky._ The ship shook beneath her – jolting back and forth in abhorrent violence. Her eyes were quiet, tears slipping down. She could not even blink them away.

* ~*~*

The Master fell back against the door of his TARDIS. Muffled  _thuds_ faded on the other side. He laughed at them. Laughed until his laughter turned to tears. His fist smashed into the door. The lights flickered. He recoiled with a groan of agony. Pealed back his other hand from his side. Passively watched his blood drip onto the carpet. It turned black…

Delicate as Missy had been, it hurt. The body feared its end and then he’d gone and doubled down on it in a wave of insanity.

Death dragged him down the surface of the door until he folded up on the floor. Begging him. Reaching with loving arms. The glow of time energy prickled at his fingers and swirled into the room, lighting the darkness.

He rocked forwards – fell onto his hands and crawled across the floor toward the console. With nothing but his bare hands, the Master pried off the protective covering and shoved the de-materialisation circuit in. Coloured lights rippled around the room.

There it was…

The gentle wheeze of the centre column.

Freedom.

The whole universe awaited – anywhere but here. He wanted to wipe this whole nightmare from his mind. A bad dream.

He’d -

The Master dragged himself up far enough to pull the lever and send the TARDIS into flight.

He’d gone too far this time.

*~*~*

The world thundered. Missy guessed this was the Doctor’s final fall. Is this why he’d finally killed her? Was he afraid of a universe without him as her measure? She’d be _flattered_ if that were true but if this was a suicide pact she’d rather be out there in the thick of it with him.

Or maybe her fantasy of redemption was the shock talking.

The glow on the horizon was gaining brightness. There was a tide of it rising beyond the trees and a mushroom cloud lifting right to the roof where it flattened into a canopy of churning, dark grey clouds. Fire flickered out from their depths, barely contained. The true hellfire was coming for her – rushing through the forest.

She could hear it now – a rumble almost inviting. Primal and -

Missy’s mind faltered as a strong wind stripped leaves right off the swaying pines and tossed them aside. Unable to close her eyes, she knew that she was going to witness every moment. Oh well… _We did things not even the stars dreamed of_ , she thought.

And then as the fire hit it knocked the trees over which covered her in a protective canopy, safe from the surging flames. She felt the heat. Coughed back the smoke. Cried through the ash.

But failed to die.

Time Lords… They just kept on going.

*~*~*

The rain drowned the fire. Missy could hear it smashing against the bark of the fallen trees that covered her. A violent _crack_ set off a cascade of deluge as part of the pile fell away, revealing her to the elements. There was a trunk across her lower legs – snapped bone and torn flesh. Not that it mattered. But why was it raining?

The rain had bothered her from the start. It was if it was separate from the ship. An external outpouring of -

A figure crouched down in front of her.

Bill Potts, in the flesh. All wide eyed and crying in sync with the rain. Of course. The Cyberman that cried. Human once more.

Bill knelt on the blackened ground and stared at Missy. There must have been a moment when she thought the Time Lord was dead but eventually she stretched her hand forward and brushed her fingertips across a line of well-washed tears leaking down Missy’s cheek.

Missy had begged the universe to die before a Cyberman found her but of all the last faces to see, Bill Potts hurt the most.

“I know you can hear me.” Bill said, withdrawing her hand. “This is quite a reversal. The last time it was me on the ground and you wondering if your stories fell on deaf metal. I wanted you to know that I heard you and – and I wanted you to hear a few things before the end.”

The Pilot was off to the side, waiting patiently out of sight. She didn’t understand everything that humans did.

“I thought you might like to know the reason I agreed to come with you on this mission. It was something the Doctor said – which is that you were different – he said that you were the only person even remotely like him. You’re a pair of rare birds. Very strange birds.” Bill had to admit. “But a pair none the less. I thought if we did this that you might be able to be his friend – not locked in a cage but – well… What I really wanted to say...”

Bill paused as the rain faded off.

“...it wasn’t your fault that I died. I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner. You didn’t fail.”

The longer Bill stared down at the static body of the Time Lord, the tighter the back of her throat became. It wasn’t like looking at the Doctor, already dead in the middle of the field. Gods… She couldn’t tell Missy that. Let her die with his fate a question mark.

“What are we going to do with her?” The Pilot moved closer.

Bill wiped her own tears away. “We can’t leave her here. It – it wouldn’t be right.”

“It’s up to you.”

*~*~*

_There was a place at the edge of the crimson grass fields where the sand of the dunes met the edge of civilisation. She walked along that line with their baby in her arms, swaddled in purple silk embroidered with the stars they were going to see._

“ _Sh…” Missy cooed at the child, as it reached a tiny hand free and fussed._

_One of Gallifrey’s suns had already set leaving the second wandering close to the horizon. This was the most peaceful place on the planet – beyond the reach of the raging Academy whose furious noise was building to a political storm. She feared Theta, inching toward the heart of the chaos._

_She dipped her head down and kissed the infant’s forehead, clutching her close. They were furious, of course. All those Time Lords sitting on their thrones. In truth it was jealousy – far more dangerous. The most polite of the raging voices wanted them to move into the wiles and vanish from public life. A hum of fury called for their ‘removal’ from life or Gallifrey, they never bothered to clarify but the whispers of dark rooms in the dead of night wanted something altogether darker. For them the child was an opportunity._

_To Missy, she was the world._

_She sat on the edge of the grass and watched a few lazy dust devils spiral through the dunes. The canopy of stars were pushing the way through the sunset, the brightest of them flicker above. There were a few large colony ships cruising low in the atmosphere. They fell in slow motion, like majestic comets shrouded in pastels._

_Missy’s wild red hair was the colour of the sunset – a real burnt umber._

“ _Can you hear that?” She whispered to the child. “That’s the song of Gallifrey.” It was barely a murmur but a melody none the less. A strain of lonely music, wandering the cusp of night._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this is brief - it's a bridging chapter. I hope you like it :)


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A special shoutout to nerdyrosa on tumblr for the gorgeous fanart of this fic. https://nerdyrosa.tumblr.com/post/165877407028/from-ellym3lly-s-fanfiction-missing-that-i

Bill laid Missy’s body across the Doctor’s bed. It felt strange, standing in the heart of the TARDIS inside his private sanctum where he sought refuge away from all the noise of his companions, the dangers of the universe and responsibility in general. The room was large and circular with a dome of false stars spinning too slowly for the human eye to notice. Stars twinkled while the planets remained steady. An odd looking moon was creeping up over one of the wardrobes, pummelled within an inch of its life from calamity and Bill was sure that she could see the blue of a galaxy arm around the edge, not quite in focus.

The problematic Time Lord was alive but not in any sense that Bill could connect to. Missy’s mind was somewhere else – hopefully in a better memory than these last weeks. Bill brushed some of that wild, dark hair out of her face and fussed with a pillow until Missy looked like she was sleeping peacefully except for her wide open, glassy eyes. Then she picked out a few lingering twigs from her clothes, blackened from the roar of flame.

Bill’s eyes dragged down toward Missy’s lower legs which where clearly broken and bleeding through her stockings in steady rivers of half-congealed crimson. The raw violence fell in stark contrast to the otherwise serene figure. Perhaps this is what they meant by beauty in depravity. There was something about the harsh reality of death – like the explosion of a dying star – that Bill could not look away from. Maybe that was a function of her humanity. Mortal things were drawn to death, one way or another. Time Lords – they were not meant to die.

Another thought struck her, it was not very often in a human’s life that the future of the universe waited with bated breath on an unspoken decision. Here she was – a billion, billion worlds and all of time and space. Bill had a choice to make.

The Pilot was flying the TARDIS away from the black hole. It trembled slightly in flight. A quaint twitch and the slightest tilt because underneath the chameleon filter nothing was quite straight. The Doctor used to insist that it was nonsense – the TARDIS didn’t shake when she flew but it did, like the shudder in a butterfly’s wing.

“I wonder where you are...” Bill spoke, despite Missy being too far away to hear her. “And if I should leave you in that place. A lot of people in the universe would be grateful but whether or not it would be safer… You know, I don’t think I can answer that.”

Missy was evil, certainly but she had shown a tendency to stand against those things that were _truly_ over the edge. Bill was not arrogant enough to think that Missy would be reborn an angel, or sentimental enough to believe a moment of salvation would equal a happy ever after. Nor was she so vain to assume that her actions now would be more profound than they really were. This was a choice she made fully aware of its potential to fail and she was okay with that.

“This is probably the stupidest thing any stupid human has ever done,” Bill admitted, deciding. “But if I do this, it is so that you can set right that thing which feeds your anger because the Doctor was wrong about one thing – locking you in a vault isn’t going to solve all your problems. Even I know that some things require action before you can heal. I want him to have his friend so...”

*~*~*

_Gallifrey_ , Missy watched the stars  spiral  overhead.  She knew them – every constellation and all the dazzling smears of distant galaxies in between. A dream and a lie.  Her home and the hell that haunted her nightmares.

She turned her head. Silk slid against her cheek as the rest of the room materialised. Slowly, as if waking from death, reality filtered into view.  _A TARDIS_ , she realised, feeling the subtle hum of the engines mid flight. Carefully, Missy sat up on the bed. She felt stronger than she had in years – renewed and yet-

Missy held up her hands. Even in the twilight of the bedroom she could see that they were the same hands as before. But – but surely she was dead? She remembered flickers of the ship. Of fire and ash. Of rain… Her stockings were torn and bloody but the skin beneath was pale and smooth. Her hair, full of pine needles but none of the scars put there earlier.

There was a side table beside the bed and on it, a small framed picture  edged in rose gold . Her hearts stopped as she reached over  and plucked it from the surface. Cupped in her hands, Missy stared at the image of her – faded and damaged but certainly  _her_ , child in her arms and soft smile across her lips.  The paper was so old it barely lingered in existence – if one were to lift the glass it would surely blow away into dust along with her memories.

This was the Doctor’s room,  Missy realised, and he’d kept her there hidden away from the rest of the world.  Something to smile at when he thought no one else was looking. She was wrong. He’d not forgotten her…  _What the hell was she doing in his bedroom?_

A small amount of sense drifted back to her along with another scattering of memories. She dragged her skirt up and saw the state of her stockings and remembered the tree that had fallen onto her bones. Then the fire. Then Bill.

Not dead.

Missy lifted her hands and inspected them. The time energy showed no interest in rising through her skin. It was as though someone had reset every cell in her body – not only repairing the damage of the Master’s screwdriver but also – she reached up to the back of her head but the lump was gone. Every scratch and bruise wiped clean. Reset to zero.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and was instantly struck by a horrifying thought.  _What if this was the Time Lord Matrix?_ Had she simply been uploaded into the database like a ghost for the amusement of the Time Lords?  Were they sitting in the citadel like a panel of judges waiting for her to reveal secrets, one at a time for their amusement?

Her hea r ts thundered out of sync with each other.  _Don’t panic._ She instructed herself firmly.  _Not unless you confirm the fear is possible._ Was it possible? Missy sat their quietly sifting through the scenario. No. Very unlikely.  An elaborate afterlife of a primitive life form was more likely  than a Time Lord conspiracy.  _She hoped._

The second revelation hit harder than the first.

If she was alive, maybe  _he was alive._

Missy slid off the bed and padded around the room, grazing her fingertips lightly over some of his things as if she could feel him breathing through them. All these years and it startled her how little Theta had changed. Same old Time Lord, different coat. A beautiful, soft velvet thing it was too. She retrieved it from the back of his chair and folded it affectionately over her arm. Wherever he was, alive or dead, he’d want his coat.

*~*~*

“Relax, honey...” Missy cooed at the TARDIS, as she strolled down her hallways, one hand on the cracking paint. It flecked off against her skin. There was no reason for it, of course but the machine _chose_ to show the passage of time on its surface to remind those creatures that shed their face from one century to the next that there were _always_ scars left behind, even if you couldn’t see them at a glance. “ I’m not going to tickle anywhere you’d rather keep me out of.”

Loose in the TARDIS was up there on  Missy’s fantasy list. It wasn’t the novelty of space and time at her fingertips – it was the  _trust_ it represented. When there was nobody to impress the shine wore off all too fast.

“What’s all this noise then?” She added, at the distant tolling of a Cloister Bell. “A bit over the top, don’t you think? Mind you,” Missy continued her conversation with the sentient vehicle, “drama is something you have in common with your captive pet. Theta only nicked you to ruffle a few feathers. He was always brash with consequence.”

A few more rooms and she encountered the fourteen pools and the hot springs. It was her favourite part of the TARDIS and Missy got the feeling that the old girl was offering her a form of reply under the guise of home décor.  Every minute she spent in the TARDIS helped to fade the horrors of that spaceship. It was a whole existence under the greedy eye of death where time and space blurred and fell apart at the edges. A living hell for creatures of order. Even though the TARDIS had flown away from it she could feel still feel  the black hole’s presence at the edges of her mind – chewing away at her conscious.

S team rose from every surface in the pool room, shrouding everything in vapour. Missy inhaled the scented air, allowing it to wash through her lungs and throat, clearing away the filth of the farm. The moisture collected on her skin and dripped out of her hair. She paused along the edge of one of the larger pools and tilted her face to the hundreds of spot lights with water running off her cheeks like  a veil of tears . It was another world.

The toll of the Cloister Bell drew her back from the edge of the pool. Missy shook off the spell the place had spun over her and crossed to the door at the other side. She tugged the handle sharply and staggered back when it opened into a sprawling wardrobe with a pair of spiral staircases curling up and down dozens of levels with clothes packed in to every surface.

“Messing with the floor plan again...” Missy whispered to the ship. The TARDIS was trying to make a point but she wasn’t sure exactly what that might be. Unless her shredded skirt and stockings were something it was trying to amend.

Missy lofted an eyebrow. Well – maybe the old girl had a point there. It was the same story Nardole had told her in the farm house. Appearances were just as important as reality.

“Ah...” She sighed, a while later. Missy found what the TARDIS was trying to show her in the Doctor’s sprawling wardrobe. It was another amethyst dress but styled with embroidered stars. It was not the original, that was long gone but rather a perfect replica. “I’m not wearing that,” Missy warned the TARDIS. “Not yet.”

The next offering was a replacement of her current attire  which she accepted, right down to the silver pin that she’d lost on the forest floor. Missy spent a good hour rebuilding herself in front of the floor to ceiling mirror – literally… It spanned every level in one continuous strip of reflection that made her look like an insignificant speck.  Like the paint on the TARDIS walls, the wooden bannisters were faded and cracked, crying out for a varnish. There was a scattering of rot on the lower levels where water from the pool room settled on the floor. Despite being full of clothes, it smelled like a library and housed just as much dust. It was ordered chaos – a contradiction, like Theta.

When Missy was dressed again she sat down on one of the stairwells and clutched Theta’s coat.

_He must be alive,_ she thought. Why else would the TARDIS go to all this trouble? Why let her live at all.  _Unless it’s stealing another Time Lord…_

No. Missy shook that thought off.  Besides, Missy was the one who did the stealing in this universe.

She stared at the grain in the wood beside her, wondering what the Doctor had whispered to it over the years. Did he ever say things meant for her? Time – it was _full_ of whispers. That’s why Time Lords tried not to travel in it too much. They lost touch with who they were and all their lives. No… Time Lords mostly used their gift for immortality, living out dragging years on the same burnt planet inside a glass done, clinging to each breath and yet living none of them. It made her want to scream. Theta too… He’d seen the bars around their lives.

Missy didn’t know how long she sat on the step of the towering wardrobe but eventually a chill brushed over her neck and she picked herself up off the floor and started to descend deeper into the TARDIS. The machine was guiding her in subtle ways and soon enough a door opened and Missy stepped through, finding herself back in one of the main corridors. This one was clean and polished. All the lights worked. They lined the ceiling like the phosphorescent pattern on a deep sea fish, shimmering ever so slightly between green and white.

“Come on, Old Girl, you know what I’m looking for,” Missy took each step carefully. There were centuries of bad blood between them. For all Missy knew, the TARDIS might lull her along for a while then open up a trap door into the cooling system and slice her into a thousand pieces. Machines were like that – cold.

The final door opened onto the top level of the control room. Missy heard the familiar hum of the centre console which never changed its tune no matter how many faces the Doctor shuffled it through. His vanity for everything including his ship was perplexing.

Missy tip-toed toward the railing, keeping to the shadows cast by the support beams. Either side of her, the big discs of light had been dimmed, in fact the entire room was in a state of twilight. She inched further until she reached the rail and leaned cautiously over.

He was there.

Standing with his hands on the closed doors of his TARDIS, his head against the wood. He was so still that Missy missed him on the first sweep of the room. It was as though he’d grown there, forehead embedded on the surface, communing with the ship – or crying through it. Quietly, Missy shifted to the right toward the top of one of the staircases that led down to the main deck. He didn’t notice was she stepped into the first halo of light from the glowing circles in the wall or when her hand swept along the rail with a high pitched, soft  _hiss_ of friction.

At the top of the stairs she lingered, hand on the rail and his jacket in her other arm.

“Doctor...” she purred – then waited.

* ~*~*

Time energy warred beneath his skin, chasing itself around and around with a fury that he barely controlled. It twitched through every and  _any_ crack in his hide. A cut here a scrape there and it glistened at the edges. He still did not know what happened after the explosion on the ship but when he’d awoken it was without the grave injuries. The only scratches left were a few cuts he’d inflicted on himself slamming his hands against the console. Everything else… Well – it was gone. His chest, hand and head – they were good as new, like he’d been  _reset_ . Or killed.  _Probably killed._

The last thing he remembered were the stars fading to smoke.  _No_ . Not stars. Shards of fire from the explosion and then a dark cloud smothering the flame. He’d let the darkness take him from there. Falling. Slipping away to a sense of peace.  _It hadn’t felt like peace._ The last moments were filled with his silent screams as the world slipped from his fingertips. He could have sworn he felt hands clutch at his chest and a Time Lord mind reach out across the abyss.

He’d woken with a tear smashing on the floor and the  _whir_ of his TARDIS spinning itself back into life. No Bill. No Nardole.  _No Missy…_ Just him and his machine. He’d run away again without even meaning to.

“What have I done?” The Doctor whispered to the wood, pressing his forehead harder against the surface. He was of half a mind to pull back and bash that useless head against the door a few times to knock some sense into himself but he didn’t have the will for that either. He was alive but the last pages of the story were missing.

That was when he heard the door creak open and a set of soft footfalls creep onto the deck above. They lingered for a while then carefully followed the curve of the balcony. He was not alone in the TARDIS after all and he knew exactly who watched him from the top of the stairs.

‘ _Doctor?’_ He heard, but that wasn’t him. Today he was just ‘Theta’. Another snap of gold bridged the distance between his fingertip and the door.  There was always a part of him that had wondered if it would be Koschei that came for him at the end – the final curtain fall. They already had each other’s Confession Dials so there was nothing left to exchange.

Finally he turned and laid against the door.

She looked the same. A perfect, mad vision lingering at the top of the stairs, complete with melancholy smile. Her eyes glistened in the TARDIS half-light. For a long time they said nothing, revelling in the still.

When they moved it was together. Theta striding across the room and Koschei taking one step at a time, slowly sinking through the steps. When he reached the foot of the stair she had a few left to travel. Nearly within reach she said, “Not dead. Big sur-”

She wasn’t given the chance to finish. Theta reached up, taking her by the waist and sweeping her from the last couple of steps with a strength that she had deeply missed. She half-stepped, half-fell the last few steps and landed against his chest.  His hand  at her waist wrapped right around, joined by a second as his head dipped down and Theta’s face buried against her neck in a sob. Still clutching his jacket against his back, Missy’s free arm laid across his shoulder. The two of them stood there, locked together perfectly.

His body shuddered in a sob and she stroked her hand down the back of his neck. There were so many questions but none of them mattered at the moment. Koschei felt her feet tap gently onto the ground as he lowered her. Now she saw his face, streaked with tears. “Idiot...” she whispered, and kissed him firmly.

The kiss crackled and burned – taken hostage by both of them.

They needed more. Koschei dropped his  velvet jacket in surprise as Theta spun her around, dragged her into a second kiss and walked her backwards across the room. “Theta.  _Theta..._ ” she gasped, as he lifted her up onto the TARDIS console.

S he managed to break from his lips for a moment. One of her hands trembled down his cheek and the other brushed his damp lip. She was floored by what she found there. This was  _her_ Theta. Raw and dragged from memory. He’d emerged, somehow, back into the world.

“I’ve been _missing_ you,” he whispered, “all this time.”

She dragged him down to her lips in answer.  He moaned and she raked him in closer, clutching onto his lapels until the seams of the ancient material tore leaving them rags. He stepped between her legs – she shuffled, finding a spot on the console that wasn’t riddled with buttons and levers. It happened so fast her mind could hardly keep score. His hands teased up the endless skirts – satin and cotton layers – purple and white until they bunched around her corseted waist. Her stockings ended in garters half way up her thigh which his hands roamed over, traced by his thumbs but left in place. The sudden cool air as her centre parted left her head tilting back in a moan. She wasn’t wearing anything else.

K oschei pushed his torn jacket off and trailed her careless fingers down the line of buttons on his shirt  until the smooth skin of his chest emerged, free of the terrible injury from the farm. Whatever had happened to her had also happened to him. Someone wanted the Time Lords to survive. That didn’t matter either as Theta’s mouth sucked on her throat leaving her writhing at his desire.

W ith clothing dripping of f them and Koschei perched on the console, she wished that they could pause to revel in the debauchery of all they’d rebelled against but there was no time. Theta unhooked his pants and let them fall.  She tugged him forwards at the same time he stepped in. Her legs wrapped around his hips at the same moment as he thrust up into her, leaving her with a heavy moan tumbling from her lips and a groan on his. They shifted until they were as close as two people could get. Hard and trembling inside her, Koschei felt her body trying to draw him even deeper. Then she gave him exactly what he’d wanted to hear – the breathless words that  chased his fantasies for longer than silly human civilisations had stood.

“Go on then,” Koschei purred, leaning almost to his lips, “fuck me.”

H er arm flailed backwards, finding purchase on the TARDIS centre column as Theta drove himself into her, thrusting against her as what could only be described as primal abandon. The basest of Time Lord criticism of primitive culture yet it was  _everything_ they needed and the only thing that set their pulses racing. It was oblivion but one filled with absolute completion. All she could hear was the crush of her skirts, the clinking of a belt hanging loose – slamming against a metal surface, staggered breaths and her own sharp cries that grew louder and louder.

His hand gripped at her upper thigh, leaving white marks in her flesh. The other anchored him to the TARDIS so that he could take her harder.  _This was like their first time in these forms,_ he realised. The desperation of barely controlled rutting.  She’d grown so wet there was almost nothing to resist between them yet the only thing that she wanted in this moment was him deeper.

At the brink, Theta pulled his head back and then pressed their foreheads together so that he could look her right in the eyes as he came – leaving Koschei to unravel  _entirely_ .

* ~*~*

Later, she retrieved his velvet coat from the ground, draped it back over her arm and dusted it off tenderly. He watched, dressed only in his shirt and pants as his previous black jacket was left a ruin from their reunion.

“Here,” she said, handing it to him, “I found this in a dark corner.”

He accepted it, slipping it onto his shoulders. The Doctor spent a few minutes preening. It had been a long time since he’d worn this coat. The wearing of it came with additional responsibility which he wasn’t sure he was ready for.

While he leaned against the TARDIS console, Missy retreated to the bottom stairs where she sat, needing to keep a physical distance between them.

“Do you know what happened?” He asked.

Missy shook her head. “I’ve always found it’s best not to question a  _deus ex machina._ My life is an ongoing black comedy with a touch of melodrama.”

“Tears?”

“Always...” She assured him.

“Not dead...”

“That appears to be the sum of it.” Though she had a point to pick with him about that. “Was my demise an inevitability?” Koschei turned serious. “Because you returned that screwdriver to me untouched. You did not know a third party would intercede in our salvation which means, at the very least, that you suspected he’d use it on me. Was that your idea of a ‘hands clean’ solution? The trigger pulled out of sight and you, two steps from responsibility...”

“Missy...”

“Is it weird that I _knew_ you would make that choice, even as you handed it to me? I walked away from you knowing exactly what you’d done. It was a bit of a thrill, really. To know that one of us had the courage to end whatever _this is_.”

She fell quiet – a building rim of tears at the base of her eyes. Knowing that something would happen didn’t make it hurt any less.

“The only question I have for you is _why_?”

He looked to the ground first, as if there were answers in the criss-cross of patterns on the metal floor. “You’re right,” he whispered, finally lifting his gaze back to her. “I knew he’d do it. I tried to make sure of it. I certainly riled your younger face up as much as I could in our final moments together.”

She’d thought those pleas to stay were for  _her_ . Well they were but they were echoes for her past not her raging present.

“ _Why_...” She asked again.

“Simple.” Indeed, it was so simple that he was a little surprised that she’d overlooked it. “I saved you.”

Her face  _fell_ . “Saved me...” She repeated, in a whisper.

“From a fate worse than death. I wasn’t lying. The Cybermen were going to catch up to us eventually. I didn’t want you to burn with me nor did I want them to drag you down into their factories. Look at you,” he gestured in her direction, “any idiot can work out what happened between the two of you. It was fixed. You followed the Master with every intention of killing him.”

_He knew…_

“I couldn’t bear the alternative,” he admitted. “We were both meant to die there. An end to this story. The neat closing of the cover – setting us back on the shelf like all those other stories left to rot.”

“But we’re _not done_ ,” Missy stood up and paced along the edge of the ground floor. “We were brought back to finish something. At least _I was_.” She turned. “Take me back.”

“To the ship?”

“No. Of course not. To Earth. To my TARDIS.”

There was no going back to the vault for either of them. For better or worse, those days were over. He could no sooner lock her up than kill her – the universe conspired to prevent it. “And where will you go?”

“Where do you think...” Her voice dropped.

“Missy – _no_.”

“One of us has to end it, Theta and it was never going to be you.” It was _never_ him.

“The only reason you want to go back to Gallifrey is the aesthetic of a cape.”

His attempt at humour left a faint smile across her lips. “Please.”

“You’re my friend.”

“It makes no difference.” She assured him. That was a lesson he’d managed to impart on her.

“Friendship makes all the difference in the world.”

“Don’t...”

“ _The darkness,”_ he whispered, repeating her words he’d found written by her in High Gallifreyan in that old book he was never meant to see, _“strives to kiss the sun and is, by its lust, consumed until at last the sun gives out and darkness again, the lonely heart.”_

Missy all but held her breath.

“Is that what you truly think about yourself?” He asked, deeply saddened that she saw herself in such demise. “That our friendship is cursed by its very nature?”

She shook her head very slowly. “It’s not about _me_.”

It was about _him_.

He didn’t know where to go from there and neither did she leaving the pair of them left in silence once again.


	28. Chapter 28

The centre console flickered into life, rasping like a deep sea diver coming out from the abyss. Missy had moved to the opposite side of the console to help him fly. There was no need to speak during the delicate process which left them stealing half-looks that lived and died in an instant.

He’d agreed to her request. In theory, at least. Missy seriously doubted that he’d unravelled her plots to their natural conclusions. He probably preferred not to know the depths of her intent. Ignorance was simpler. He could forgive himself for that. Missy had always seen the universe in its entirely. Every dark hole. Every unfortunate corner of depravity. No surprises.

The lights calmed as the time machine landed softly on the lawn. Missy pulled down on the brake and a flutter of anxiety ran right down her spine.

The Doctor spent longer than needed recalibrating the main screen – fussing and nudging switches that would rather be left alone. He was avoiding the topic. She approached him carefully, dragging her fingertips over the surface of the console – exploring the occasional panel of buttons or rusted lever. _Plenty of character_. That’s what he’d built into his TARDIS. He’d always loved old and broken things. That’s what they both were now.

“I’m coming back, of course.” Missy began, when she came within a foot of his brooding figure.

He was staring at the buttons – anywhere but her. His eyebrows met in a deep furrow – hair set in dramatic waves with rivers of grey and silver. “Yes – yes – of course.”

A pair of lies, equally unconvincing. Somewhere in those weeks on the farm she’d lost the talent for it. They’d have to make do with honesty.

“Are you sure you won’t come with me?” Missy turned around, resting on the console. She’d pinned back her hair, fixed her clothes and found a replacement hat with another dead thing set among false flowers and fruit. “No. Not your style.” She realised. He’d never sully his hands with so much blood. “Never mind.”

Her final words sounded so sad that the Doctor lifted his eyes finally. He’d mistakenly thought that by avoiding her gaze he could avoid the parting entirely. “I could take you _anywhere_ else,” he offered.

“Nah...” She poked him gently on the shoulder. He caught her hand before she could escape. “Don’t go all soft on me now. Where’s my, ‘oncoming storm’ mmm?”

“That’s all a lot of nonsense to frighten the children.” He lifted her hand up to his lips, placing the softest of gentlemanly kisses there. He didn’t let it go after that, instead preferring to clasp it between both his large hands. There was still a surge of Time energy there, trying to break free.

“You should be careful, Theta. Those frightened children grow up into civilisations that stretch across the stars.”

*~*~*

It was a perfectly warm and beautiful day. The grass rippled, soft and green underfoot. Avenues of plane trees lined the park on all sides, heavy with summer foliage and filled, limb to branch with cooing pigeons. University students were sprawled in the sun like beached seals while the old walls loomed over everything, cracked with age and feasted on by ivy.

“How long have we been gone?”

“Not quite an hour. I have a lecture starting soon,” the Doctor replied, offering Missy his arm as they stepped out of the TARDIS. She accepted, folding their limbs together as the scattered sunlight fell over them and the door closed. “Squirrels and the String Theory,” he replied, when she asked what it was on.

“A touch advanced for a primitive little backwater like this.”

“Entertaining though – that’s what matters.”

“Ah yes, one must always be entertained. There’s a Time Lord in you yet, Theta.”

Instead of following the path they took a diagonal short cut across the grass. Her heeled boots sank in slightly and she was glad of his arm. A few people let their eyes linger on them. They looked like something out of a period production. All that was missing was a top hat, walking cane and for her a parasol.

Missy could feel the presence of the vault off to their left, hidden beneath the building. There was a moment when she thought he might have changed his mind and dragged her back down into the dank underworld and locked her away. Part of her might have let him.

“Safe, as promised.” He pointed to the red phone box parked beside an iron lamp post.

The chameleon filters on Missy’s TARDIS were slightly more advanced than his. The glass windows reflected the park lands as if the tiny thing were empty. Even from this distance he could see the single black phone inside its cracked glass, all of which was an illusion.

“Humans...” She purred. “They credit themselves as curious but leave a box parked in the middle of nowhere or a honking great spaceship in the middle of the sky and they don’t bat an eyelash. Are you _sure_ you want to stay shackled to this lot? Great big universe out there… Plenty of other middling creatures to adopt...” Missy was only teasing. She knew very well that the Doctor had stronger ties than curiosity to this planet. “And this,” she added, “is where we part ways.”

They’d reached the doors of her TARDIS. It was locked. Missy held out her hand, expectant of the key. He reached into his coat pocket and – and…

Missy produced it in her other hand with a wicked grin. Already stolen.

“Fair point,” he admitted. “I am no longer your keeper.”

“Don’t you go giving away my room now,” she warned him, “I might need it.”

She slid the key into the red wood door. It clicked, turned and creaked open. She heard it waking up – the lights flickering into action, the whirring of the machine’s heart staggering back into action. The Doctor was right about one thing, they were _creatures_ , as alive as all his precious humans and Missy knew it wouldn’t take kindly for all the decades it had spent stuck here among the birds.

As she pulled the door toward her the Doctor’s hand pushed it closed. She startled. “Don’t do that.”

“I don’t want you to go,” he whispered against her ear.

She felt her body lay against hers, pressing her into the door. Missy turned around and before she could take a breath he was kissing her again. Her hand rested on his chest, keeping him ever so slightly back. Or was that to stop herself from falling? She couldn’t tell anyway more. A few millennia ago _maybe_ but they were beyond lines in the sand.

“That’s enough now...” Missy breathed, as they parted. “I really do have to go.”

“Time machine,” he murmured, leaning back in but her head tilted away. “We could have tea.”

“Set the tea,” she whispered, fingers running down the lapel of his coat. “I’ll make sure I’m back in time.”

With that, Missy vanished through the door. She laid against it. He was on the other side. Lingering. Slowly she allowed herself to slide down until she was sitting on the floor. A thousand years and there was still a nasty blood stain on the carpet. Thoughts of that time were a right blur these days but the scar from the knife never quite healed. Same as the blood. It refused to wash off the ship as though it were trying to tell her something.

“There’s no point,” she spoke to the ship, “I never listen anyway.”

*~*~*

She fucking hated that thing.

“It’s all right...” Missy cooed at her ship, as it rumbled beneath her. She kept everything steady, slowly skirting around the ravenous gravity field of the marauding black hole. It was a thing of death that made her playful enterprises look like pop up stores next to a galactic franchise. “Bet you never thought you’d see this face again,” she played with it. “Well, surprise. I’m not done with you yet.”

Missy brought her TARDIS in by hand, flying it gently. She’d never make the mistake of burning the engines again. Lesson well and truly learned. _Gosh_ it looked bad from the outside. A Mondasian nightmare shining like a freshly made knife at the front and a near wreck at the back – crumpled, black and almost entirely ruined.

Memories – hazy, filtered through into her mind. _His memories_ , she realised. They were riddled with overwhelming bursts of emotion. This wasn’t a random act of malice or an accidental moment of piracy – this Mondasian ship had been a deliberate destination but Missy couldn’t quite find her way through the chaos to an answer.

*~*~*

A field of wild flowers nodded their heads against the landing TARDIS. Yellow, pink but mostly white. They shed petals into the artificial wind kicking about the level. A shallow river curved behind complete with ducks. It vanished in a forest of pines, not unlike the one the Doctor burned to the ground.

Missy stepped out into the field and flinched at the metallic edge on the air. Another farm house rose up in the distance, different to the last one. It was in better nick, flanks of grey stone with fresh wood nailed around the third floor. All four of its chimneys puffed. Horses grazed, scattered about with their noses flush to the earth. Those same, ominous numbers sat in the sky. Numbers on a prison cell.

It was an horrific place. A children’s story before the wolf.

_There it was_ . Beneath her feet. The rumble of the Cyberfactories, strong and raging in the depths. They’d be here, soon enough.

* ~*~*

“Found this,” said Missy, holding up the bundle of poorly knit, luridly coloured beanie. “Outside in the-”

“Blimey!” Nardole nearly fell through the farm house door at the sight of Missy on the doorstep. “No I mean _really_ , blimey!” He repeated, not quite processing the information. Two weeks and he’d figured that there was no one left to come back for him. The explosion in the lower decks reverberated all the way up. Trees fell. Windows broke. All the clouds vanished and day turned to night. He’d gone and bloody done it. The Doctor – blow it all to shit. Riversong had warned him on occasion that there were points of no return but it was only in those final moments as the dust settled that he believed it. Missy… Well he’d assumed she’d escaped but never did he imagine she’d come back to this place.

“Take it – before I burn it.” Missy jostled the beanie in her hand.

He did but only out of shock.

“Oh – don’t look so bloody surprised,” she muttered. “Death is for-”

“Other people.” Nardole finished her catchphrase. “So you keep saying. _Not_ why I’m surprised.”

“We don’t have long,” Missy warned him, “so can we postpone this until after we’re off this sinking piece of scrap metal...”

*~*~*

Missy sat on the sloped bank of the river while the stream of children filtered into her TARDIS carrying bits and pieces of their lives. None of them had much. A few toys. A blanket or two. The odd pillow. Mostly they held each other’s hands and sang random tunes. Hazran stood on the porch, ushering them out of the house. There weren’t many farmers left but those that remained gathered the livestock, preparing to load them last. Missy hated to think what would become of the inside of her ship but she’d made the choice to help so –  _c’est la vie_ .

“The Doctor… He – well he didn’t live, I take it.” Nardole said, standing beside her on the shore of the river.

The darker side of her fashioned up a smile. Even with all the evidence to the contrary, no one wanted to see the truth. “Second rule,” she whispered, “the Doctor runs from his mistakes.”

“Is that what we were,” Nardole asked, “a mistake?”

“Nudging you a couple of floors up to be slaughtered at a later date isn’t exactly a sparkling victory, now is it?” Missy replied.

Nardole nodded. “Do us a favour, eh? Don’t tell the kids.”  Missy took his pre-offered hand, dragging her up off the grass. He wrapped his arms around her and forced a hug.

_Odd_ , Missy thought, as the android clutched at her. Is this what saving people involved? Hugging?  _She was against it._

“This doesn’t mean I care,” she insisted, when he finally extracted his paws. “This was about _winning_.”

“Uh ha. Of course. Whatever works for the pair of you so long as I don’t receive a Mondasian upgrade.” Nardole grinned madly at the Time Lord. “Where is he then, did he live?”

“Yes. He lived.” Missy replied, watching the birds duck and play in the water. “Bill too.”

“I should have killed her myself,” Nardole lamented. “That’s no way to live. I should know.” He tried not to think about his segmented body full of metal and plastic. It only served to invoke a fit of terror.

“No – not like that. She’s back to squishy human. At least. I think that part was real. It’s not entirely clear. All those things that happened at the end. I saw her though, I’m sure of that much.”

“So you’re doing all this because you think you owe her?”

Missy shook her head. There was a long reed between her gloved fingers. She twisted it around with the seed head trembling in the wind. “That would make it easier to swallow, I guess.”

“But it’s not why.”

“I’m not in a box any more, Nardole.” She warned him. “Don’t try to get inside my head. You won’t like what you find.”

It was his turn to smile. “I already know what I’d find,” he assured her. “Where to, then?” He changed the subject. “Earth?”

Missy rolled her eyes. “There are better places than Earth. Why not go somewhere nice for a change? Astyr Nine isn’t bad. Or the Hilktaar system. Plenty of available futures for all the children. Earth’s a bit of a dive.”

“I like it.”

She shrugged. “No difference to me. Earth it is.”

“Missy...”

She lifted her eyes slowly to Nardole. “What?”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say I was wrong about you but...”

“You don’t need to say it. In fact, it’s better that you don’t. Let’s just – shake on it, eh?” Missy dropped the piece of grass and offered her hand instead. “And leave it there. No promises. No regrets. Just a handshake.”

He wanted to leave it at that but he couldn’t.  “I know what happened to you, Koschei.” Nardole started, very quietly. “And I think I have a pretty good idea what you’re planning to do. You’re going to need a bit of help, let me help. Then I’ll consider us done.”

* ~*~*

Last stop  _Earth_ . Missy fancied herself an intergalactic taxi service or a school bus. Her eyes narrowed as the horses were unloaded.  _Well_ livestock transport… It didn’t take much to hop through time and square up a bit of land, set up a trust and inherit from yourself. It was a start and the bonus with this farm house  had a beautiful expanse of sky with no glaring numbers in it.

Hazran was the last to step out of the TARDIS.

“I’m going to give him hell,” Hazran promised, “for not taking up your offer of Astyr Nine.”

“So you should.” Missy agreed.

“The children are safe now,” Hazran added softly. “Exactly as you said.”

“Children are never safe,” she whispered, a single tear slipping down her cheek.

*~*~*

Some landscapes had nothing to offer. This one was on the cusp of death. The deserts, once lapping at the edges of the city, had since eclipsed it. They dragged their burning feet right across the mountains and into valleys behind, choking them.

The citadel grew from the deluge. Like a spear left on the field of war, it prodded at the sky – callous and unworthy of the morbid beauty it commanded.

She hated every moment of it.  If she could flick through the leaves of time and set fire to every corner of Gallifrey she  _would_ . Not the Doctor. He had that irritating human trait of misplaced affection. A Stockholm syndrome for an entire planet where all the horrors of his past were nestled together.

Missy landed in that ash, on the flanks of the mountains. The crimson grass had died long ago. Patches of it stuck out from the sand all dead and sharp. Behind that, the stone skeleton of a manor house in a constant state of collapse. A pair of suns tousled in the sky. There was no snow left on the peaks to turn them pink and so they remained, a row or black faces with a golden sea at their skirts.

She’d changed into spider-silk enforced with copper and steel that looked like leather in the sunlight. No more fancy dress – this was  _business_ . More than one refashioned weapon had been clipped to her belt, illegally modified with a bit of help from a friend. She nudged her sunglasses up her nose. A pair of rose-coloured, oversized aviators to match her boots.

“Miss me?” She whispered to the expanse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, this was meant to be where the story ends but a few of you said you'd like to know what happens on Gallifrey so stay tuned for a little bit more :)


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas, everyone.

Missy’s first step onto Gallifrey’s ruined veneer was interrupted by the wheeze of a poorly flown TARDIS.

There was no need to turn and confirm her suspicion, she could conjure the image quite vividly. _A blue box barely touching the scorched ground. A cloud of sand expelled from the inadequate landing._ It blew past her, twinkling like a globular cluster tossed about in the wind. The TARDIS door squeaked. A pair of feet sank into the endless sand. Black boots – both scuffed and overtly polished in an impossible state of confusion.

Missy tilted her head to the side, eyes closed as the wind curled around her like a tide tugging at the resistant river stone. “How long?”

“No idea,” the Doctor admitted in a murmur. “How long does it take to cross the park?”

“Five minutes,” she purred.

“Five minutes...” He echoed.

Her imagination pondered his ridiculous canter across the lawn, dodging pigeons and students. Theta was all limbs and hair. An awkward assembly based off a face he’d found in the ashes. Well, Missy remembered his first face. There was only one other creature alive in the universe that could claim the same and he was _here_ , hiding in the shell of Gallifrey’s crumbling citadel. Life pulsed inside the buildings but cracks inched their way over the beautiful domes. Dunes nuzzled the forcefield. Hot winds dragged their claws into the central tower, scraping away its polished limestone capping leaving the dull golden metal beneath. It wasn’t meant to look like a misshapen nugget of gold but it had stood in decay so long that no one remembered its starlight years. _She did_. Theta wasn’t the only one with dreams not entirely his.

“Liar...” Missy drawled. Her azure eyes snapped open. Pupils shrank in the glare. Slowly, she turned around and took in the view. Oh yes… It had been some time. His wounds were covered in unsightly scar tissue – a few stitches in his soul.

His eyebrows lost the last vestige of joy. “It has been even longer for you, I see.”

Missy shrugged. “Perhaps. I had a few odds and ends to take care of first.”

The city waited. Not so long ago she’d made the same trip – snuck through the streets and into the heart of the cloisters. Fresh faced and reckless, she’d waltzed through the shadows as if she owned them. There were times in her youth when she’d allowed herself to believe her own publicity. Despite a bewildering range of rumours to the contrary, she wasn’t evil. There were no special favours owed to her by fate. She was as breakable and foolish as any other Time Lord. She’d died once today. Perhaps there was a second chance on the horizon.

Well – not _quite_ as foolish as the Doctor. Missy didn’t want him here and yet she had no right to ask him to leave. They’d _both_ lost everything in this wretched place and he was entitled to his revenge as much as she was entitled to her rage

Missy inhaled the dust. Perhaps it really  _had_ been five minutes. There was a faint trace of her lipstick on his lips  that matched hers.

“Are you ready?” she asked, nodding at the city in the distance.

“No.”

“Neither am I.”

*~*~*

Time Lords built cities like ants constructed nests. They scratched around in the dark, trapped by their fear as much as the ruins of Time. Immortality cursed life. Even the best of them were too afraid to branch out into the universe with their fleet of TARDIS ships so instead they festered in each other’s nightmares. _Fuck them._ Missy wasn’t interested in liberating her kin from their misery.

“It’s this way,” she whispered, nudging the Doctor sharply to the right. They skirted around the edge of the city, keeping to the mostly uninhabited limbs. “We must enter through the service tunnels if we want to make it all the way to the cloisters. Everything else goes to the secure check points.”

“No. Not that way.” He brought them both to a stop. “There’s another way – a better way through the academy.”

Missy recoiled. “What...”

“I’ll tell you the story later, I promise,” he replied, taking her by the hand. He’d entirely misread her reluctance. “Right now you need to trust me.”

“Since when did we trust each other?” Missy countered, but threaded her fingers through his all the same.

They took the fringe of the city at a run. Mostly it had collapsed into the desert and quickly turned into a slightly darker stain of red on the sand. The atmospheric shield did little against the ravages of the wind. One of the settlement towers, built in Gallifrey’s infancy, had split in half and fallen. Its innards were bare to the sun while glass covered everything, even the streets. They paused to take in the sight.

“I’m used to ruins,” the Doctor whispered, “but I did not expect to see it on Gallifrey.”

“Time kills everything,” Missy answered. “Even Time Lords.”

“Come on.” He dragged her away and into the shadows.

Breaking into the academy was easy. Arrogant as ever, the Time Lords had left the impressive doors unlocked. All it took was a few good shoves to cave it inwards. It yawned like a great lion awakening. Cobwebs arched down from the ceiling, dipping under their own weight.

“Where is everyone?” Missy whispered, reaching up to graze her fingertips along one of the silk strands. The web swung back and forth, empty of both predator and prey.

“Maybe we’re too late?”

“Impossible. I checked. The Time Lords are _here_.” Missy closed the door and the light vanished. They crept into the academy foyer. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “There are thousands of years left of occupation. Gallifrey isn’t abandoned until the eruption of Mount Askitz. It coincides with a shield malfunction that leaves the air unbreathable and fifteen feet of ash. It’s all there in your book – _The Complete History of Gallifrey_ written by that little Nordic shit.”

“She has a name.”

“Does she? I was under the impression she forgot it. Curious choice to write a history book – a child with a patchy memory.”

“Don’t be like that.”

“Like _what_?” Missy scowled in a whisper.

“Cruel...”

His accusation was left to echo against the empty walls. The academy was not exactly as either of them remembered. There had been _hundreds_ of generations through the doors since their era. Of course the big things remained the same. The building, the curtains, the god-awful artistic installation dangling from the ceiling in the foyer with all its brass prongs intact. Several layers of award boards had been added whose display now filled the entire hallway linking the entrance to the exhibition theatre. There was no point lingering in front of them. Neither Koschei nor Theta made it within a paw’s reach of a name on a board. Except for stupidity… More than once they’d been threatened with that mocking accolade.

“It feels...”

“Yeah...” He replied to her lingering thought. “I like it better this way.”

“Empty?”

“Dead.”

“And people worry about _me_...”  Missy replied, stepping carefully over a pile of scrolls that had been left to disintegrate on the floor. “Something went wrong,” she added, nodding at the mess, “very wrong.” She held no affection for the Time Lords but a shiver still rippled along her vertebra to see their world in disarray. “The academy is fastidious. This is – this is...” Like the last pages of an unfinished diary. 

“Whatever it was we’ve missed it by a lot.” The Doctor kicked one of the scrolls with his boot. It rolled over the floor and off the landing, bouncing down the marble steps.

T hey followed – Missy with her army draped over the rotting balustrade, descending the sweeping steps as if she were their queen.  Further in they found empty rooms – one after the other. The offices where the senior Time Lords retired to watch the city tick over had been ransacked. Shattered vases and smashed doors lay together on the floor. Missy knelt down  and picked up an old day book. She wiped a layer of dust from the page with her hand.

“They were holding elections.” Missy read from the record. “One of the debates was being hosted inside the academy. There’s nothing after that.” She closed the book and set it on one of the few tables left standing.

Although neither of them said it, the similarities to _that night_ were obvious.

“You think they got out of hand?” The Doctor asked.

“Or a case of bad timing. A disorderly speech doesn’t explain a house of shadows.”

She was right, the Doctor realised. Even in the depths of hell during that night there’d been a rush of people – Gallifrey was thick with them. One angry, surging mess of voices guided by nothing. This silence was much worse.

They headed to the lecture halls which also sat empty. Their towering ceilings were entirely bare. Even the eternal fires that were meant to light the base of the statues had blown out. Only one of the halls bore evidence of a calamity. It was the largest, laid in the heart of the academy. Twice as large as its nearest comparison, its ceiling was transparent, coated in a type of living rock under which Theta and Koschei used to watch the rain. _Tears_ , Missy had called them, pouring out from the afternoon.

The enormous steps which circled the stone stage were covered in paper. The Doctor picked one up, showed Missy the image on the back and let it fall to the floor.

“Rassilon...” He breathed.

“We’re not here for this,” Missy said firmly. “Come on.” Even as she dragged him away, Missy knew that the Doctor was not done with this mystery. He’d given the discarded pages a forlorn look and that was never a good sign.

“The library,” the Doctor pointed ahead.

It was Missy’s favourite place in the otherwise hostile building. She met it as an old friend – laying against the wall and flicking bits of paint from the surface. “You remember this, I think...”

_That_ and more. There were memories locked in every corner.  It was difficult not to be dragged into them. An alcove  _here_ where they’d sat in each other’s arms all night reading tales of the early settlement or the  travels of Yarltor, the first adventurer in time who’d been lost for a hundred years on a backwater planet. There was a desk on their left with the original lamp she’d thrown at Theta’s head when he’d been particularly vexatious. It still had the crack – both the lamp and Theta.

“Oh yes...” he grinned, pulling Missy up three sets of ladders and onto a narrow landing that ended in a window overlooking the dunes and mountains. “How many lovers’ words have been spilled up here?”

“Only ours,” she assured him. “No one else had the nerve,” Missy added, keeping her distance from the window. She knew how easy it would be to let herself be consumed by these warm thoughts. “Theta, we really do not have time for this.”

His hand rested on the shelf. It was coated in dust while the scene behind of the desert was far too bright.

“If you’re having second thoughts-”

“No...” He interrupted. “Quite the contrary.”

It was Missy’s turn to take a few steps forward and find his hand. She squeezed it gently, coaxing him from his thoughts. “Then show me where this secret entrance is, hmm? Like you used to say. You knew every corner of this maze. It was almost like you built it.”

“I’d never build something with so few windows.”

“True but you’re loitering.”

He allowed her to lead him back down the ladders to the ground floor before he took over. He picked his way through until they came upon a triple set of ancient, pale-wood doors that rose in front of them like ghosts.

“I wonder what became of the forests that made these doors...” Missy said, beside him. “There have never been forests on Gallifrey. Our world was _born dying._ ” Her questions thickened as a series of narrow rooms gilded in precious metals unfolded behind them one at a time. First gold then silver – copper and platinum – smaller and smaller. Each had a single seat built into the right hand wall serving no obvious purpose. The final room was cut from a solid slab of diamond and had no door on the opposing side. Its ceiling was so low that the Doctor dipped his head as they entered.

Missy held a flashlight to the room. The narrow beam of light bounced around and around, caught in a thousand imperfections like a terrifying hall of mirrors where only the most demonic of reflections flourished.

“What now?” she asked, watching his purposeful movements.

“Now – a touch of magic,” said the Doctor, theatrically withdrawing his sonic screwdriver. He twirled it through his fingers.

“Oh _please_...” Missy growled irritably, at the arrival of his deus ex machina. “Are you going to poke it with the pointy end?”

“Hush...” He growled.

Missy tilted her head  in a predatory  fashion  as the Doctor knelt on the diamond floor and held his sonic screwdriver above the surface. It buzzed into life, glowing almost comically. Truthfully it was  _jealousy_ that invoked Missy’s sharp-tongued mocking. If the Doctor had a talent it was in the acquiring and use of sonic devices.

“Taming that bloody stick,” she narrowed her eyes, “has allowed you to lead an irresponsible life of robbery, accidental murder and election rigging.”

“Come now, Missy. It was light robbery and an accidental case of planetary annihilation.”

“You don’t deny the political corruption?”

The Doctor winked playfully. A moment later the diamond beneath the screwdriver started to sing in tune with the strange electronic hum ming. “ Watch yourself.”

“Oh _shit_!” Missy reached to the wall to stop herself falling as the entire room began to spin. Old High Gallifreyan  appeared on the floor written with blue light. More of it tried to filter through the walls but their shapes were corrupted. She covered her ears, groaning at the terrible sound as the minutes dragged. The room shifted on its axis, swivelling one-hundred and twenty degrees.

The Doctor flopped backwards onto his haunches as everything came to an abrupt stop. “Try it now...” He nodded to Missy.

Shaken, she approached the false doorway and tried the handle.

This time  the door opened into a tunnel.

*~*~*

“What is this place?” Missy asked, falling a step closer to the Doctor. Their elbows bumped together while their torchlight formed a pair of sad halos on the stone ahead. The corridor was narrow – barely wide enough for them to walk side by side and so low that the Doctor was forced to slouch. It was completely featureless, built from large limestone slabs cut by hand.

“Remnants of the _First City_ ,” he explained, ensuring Missy remained close. “There are places like this buried all over the city. Tunnels that link buildings to each other. Others that lead out into the mountains. More that end in the desert. Some that end nowhere at all. Thousands of them, Missy. It’s hollow ground.”

She felt sick at the thought of it lurking beneath her feet, out of sight. “But – but who built it?”

“You remember the stories I used to read to you about the first Time Lords...” Words whispered as she’d nursed their child in the rippling, crimson fields. The tunnel sloped downwards. “Gallifrey was founded on the bones of a different city. A much older one. No one knows who built these tunnels, Missy but that didn’t stop the High Council using them to sneak about.”

“Did _you_ use them?”

“Sometimes. Those last weeks before I left… Everyone was crazy. Rabid. It was like they’d been taken possession of by a force. There’s potency in a mob, Missy. The most placid races turn to violence.”

“Time Lords are cowards, not placid,” Missy corrected.

“It was the only way to maintain secrecy.”

“Yet you didn’t bother to tell me...”

“I was trying to keep you _away_ from those people.”

Neither of them wanted to finish that conversation. It only had one destination – the smouldering ruins of her father’s manor and their child’s screams. Instead, Missy cleared her throat. “If the others know about these tunnels, isn’t it dangerous to go snooping around in them? That’s precisely the kind of thing that gets clever idiots killed.”

“This is the exception. It’s… It’s how I got out _that night_.”

The night Theta vanished into thin air  like a magician. Here she was, learning the secrets behind the act. “I knew there was more to the story you muttered upon your return.”

“I didn’t lie.”

Missy sighed. “When are you going to learn, I don’t  _mind_ your lies. I never have. On occasion I prefer them.”

The Doctor stopped, causing her to stop too. “ Why?” He asked, with such desperately sad eyes that Missy had no hope but to reply.

“Because...” she lifted a hand to his face, cupping his cheek carefully. “Your lies are what you _wish_ were true.”

The Doctor backed away from her hand, as far as the tunnel would allow. Only her fingertips were left lightly pressed against his skin. He knocked those away. “That’s not healthy.”

“Screw that,” Missy walked him into the wall. “When has anything about us _ever_ been advisable? A nightmare at the start. A bad idea. Bloody stupid. The ruination of a great family. How many things have we been called, Theta? I never cared about any of it and neither did you. I let you have your lies and you let me have my games. We’re not _good_ , Theta, we’re Time Lords. We play with the universe as if it were a music box. You and me. From the first to the last beat of time.”

In this moment, the Doctor wanted to ravage her across every fragment of time. He dropped his torch, took Missy’s face in hand and pulled her up to his lips. She writhed against him, teetering on tiptoe, not sure whether to fight or submit but he worked his way into her mouth and earned a moan from her throat. He held her, even when she tried to slip away. Finally, Missy’s arms draped over his shoulder. She turned her head and returned his fervour. When it ended, Missy laid her head on his chest with her hair tickling the side of his face.

“I’m afraid.” Missy admitted, barely a whimper.

His arms tightened around her. “I know. Me too.” Towering over  Missy , the Doctor kissed the top of her head.  He held her for a little while longer. “We have to remember why we’re doing this – no matter how difficult. Then it will be over.  We can close this chapter.”

“And there’ll be nothing left of her, not even an echo.”

The Doctor rubbed his hand up and down her back. Missy was right about that too. Part of the reason he’d buried this for so many thousands of years was the hope that in some way their little girl was alive. He could go on living with the tiny thread of fantasy. That was the difference between them. Missy understood that fantasy was a horror in disguise.

“You brought me here, Missy, to say goodbye.”

She turned her head, hiding completely against his chest.

* ~*~*

Tunnels branched off every few metres, vanishing into black holes which Missy’s torch failed to penetrate. They gaped like wounds as they passed, hissing with currents of wind trapped in their fathoms. The Doctor continued without hesitation, keeping to the main artery for nearly an hour before he selected a small offshoot. This one had an even lower roof which left him snapped almost in half.

“When exactly did you find these tunnels? Early, I’d wager,” Missy added, as rough-cut stairs appeared in their torch light. They started up them, shuffling into single file.

“First year at the academy,” the Doctor confirmed. “It’s amazing what you stumble upon when hiding from responsibility.”

“Hiding – or trying to find things you shouldn’t be looking for in the first place… Is it much farther?”

“No. We’re nearly there. Hear them?” The distant sound of the cloister ghosts stained the air. “I can get us as far as the cloisters. I’m assuming you have a way into the Time Lord matrix?”

S he nodded in reply. “I’m not worried about those things,” Missy dipped her head at the darkness. “Ghosts guarding ghosts, put there to frighten children. Well, they won’t take a piece out of me.”

“They gave me a hell of a scare the first time around,” the Doctor admitted. “Even now…” It wasn’t so long ago that he’d stood among them, listening to their howls while on his hands and knees, trying to break through into the TARDIS ship yards. At least they weren’t going that way. Locating that Matrix was a mind trap in itself. “We’re in the cloisters.”

He was right. The tunnel opened up into another nest of cobwebs. These were thicker – older by tens of thousands of years.  They draped from pillar to pillar like sheets over furniture in an abandoned house. The floor, riddled with inscriptions, was  four inches deep in dried leaves  drifted  in from seemingly nowhere.  A closer look revealed that they were made from paint, peeled off the elaborate decorations  pressed into the ceiling which had been left skeletal  by their departure . All kinds of terrible things were chained to the columns. Most were dead.

“Long time no see...” Missy approached the remains of a Dalek. Its eye stalk had been snapped off by a chain and hung by a thread of sinew. Deep gashes criss-crossed its body. Theta dragged her away from the enticing sight.

“Don’t talk to them,” he advised. “Not all traps are built on violence. These are distractions – lures for the maleficent.”

She tried not to take that personally. “Why, did you?”

“Oh yes,” the Doctor admitted. “I chatted with them for _days_.”

Darkness settled over the Doctor that had nothing to do with the hideous bodies of fallen Time Lord enemies. The cloisters brought out undesirable chords from the depths of his soul. Perhaps the thoughts weren’t entirely his but belonged to creature far older – a loose thread in the loom stitched into his mind. Missy had never seen Theta turn cold except when in the grip of politics and power. Gallifrey was his own bespoke trap. No wonder he stayed away. _I should have done this alone_ , she thought to herself.

“I know exactly where we are,” said Missy. “The entrance from the citadel leads to the lifts over there,” she pointed to their left. Missy stepped past the Doctor, scanning her torch through the layers of mist that rose from the cracks in the floor.

He frowned, suspicious. “How did you find your way down here?”

“I have my secrets,” Missy replied, coy. It was not as if you could wander into the cloisters nonchalant. “Not all back doors are hidden. Besides, getting in was never the problem. Those will start when we try to escape. It’s an ant trap. You know,” she continued, when he offered up a confused brow ridge, “an inverse cone of sand designed to capture anything unfortunate enough to tumble over the edge. Unscalable walls with a set of jaws at the bottom.” The Time Lords didn’t give a fuck what got into their cloisters, as long as nothing left.

“Well now I feel much better, thank you… But Missy – where is the Matrix? It should be _here_.”  He prodded at the floor. “Right here.”

“They moved the Matrix after your last foray,” Missy explained. “In fact, they’ve relocated it half a dozen times since then. We’re not the only reckless idiots who took a fancy to it over the years. Eventually the Time Lord council installed a particularly strong perception filter – makes you walk past it in endless circles. Close your eyes.”

“What?”

Missy snatched the torch from him, clicked it off  then handed it back before doing the same to hers.  The remaining light  came from the  ominous mist and that was pale, weaker than starlight.  It was almost as if she was part of  it , sinking into the vapour – her edges blurring.

“Perception filters don’t work on the blind, or have you forgotten already?” She replied. “It was you that gave me the idea, actually.” Missy didn’t elaborate on _how_ but suffice to say he’d walked right into something he shouldn’t have  in the vault during the weeks he’d spent blind as a bloody mouse.

The Doctor closed his eyes and Missy did the same. _Trust._

“We might be impervious to the perception filter, Missy, but how are we supposed to know where we’re going? There are perfectly solid pillars down here.”

Missy took his hand. “I don’t need to see to know the way.  _Listen_ . ” Missy could  _hear_ the Matrix core whirring  nearby . All those decades she’d spent making that little Cyber side project of hers had left her sensitive to the electric hum of Time Lord minds. Like rivers of electrons producing magnetic fields, minds in limbo  were in possession of their own energy. “ Where did you find the piano?”

“What?” He asked, brows furrowing in confusion, his eyes still closed.

“In the vault. One day you appeared with a piano. Where did you get it from?”

“A hundred years and _now_ you ask?”

“Sure. Oh… Oh _I see_...” Missy knew exactly what face he must be making. “You stole it. How perfectly wonderful. Who from?”

“Homer Leeds the Third. Four-thousand and two AD – right before -”

“-before the spacecraft crashed on Mars?” Missy interrupted.

“It’s not like he’s going to notice.”

“So you stole it from the last moments of time before the crash...”

“It would have been a waste. Technically, it’s not stealing.”

“I think you’ll find it is.”

“Rescuing,” he insisted, “or salvaging.”

Missy let him have that  even though  T he Doctor was a long way from a Titanic undertaking . “Well – thank you. I like it even more now I know its story.  Trust you to save the instrument and not the player.  ‘Matter over Mind’ or however that human phrase goes. ”

“Ripples and waves, Missy, ripples and waves...”

“Rubbish!” She chastised him. “You know, there are times when I think it should have been _you_ they put into the vault  with all those loose screws knocking about.”

_In many ways that is exactly what they’d done_ ,  thought The Doctor to himself.  “We’re walking in circles...”  He  complained, after ten more minutes of idle bickering about which composer was the greatest in history. “I – I can  _feel_ it.”

Missy kept a tight hold on him. “Gosh, do your companions complain as much as you? All this _squawking._ ”

“This is criticism – _valid_.”

“I wish I could say that you used to be more relaxed but honestly, Theta, you were always a hypochondriac several levels down in paranoia. _Here it is_.” Missy reached forward. In the darkness of her mind, she focused on the rippled surface of the cube. “Just sitting in the  cloister. No walls. Out in the open. Time Lords… Ever fans of the broken ideal that something hidden will never be found. Everything is found in the end. Theta – hey… You can open your eyes now, idiot.”

He did and was amazed to find himself standing under the glow of an enormous orb. The Time Lord Matrix was immense, inhabiting the heart of the cloisters like a cancer – growing with ever new Time Lord mind downloaded into its soul. Floor-level was about half way up the orb. It continued to both tower above them all the way to the ceiling and extended far below, out of sight. Not even the Doctor knew what lay beneath the cloisters. Nothing good.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Missy whispered, ghosting her hand across the lattice-like surface of the Matrix, careful not to actually touch it. “A creation of absolute intelligent malice. A piece of electronic carpentry to be feared from one side of the universe to the next, shedding its skin from generation to generation.”

“And you just chipped a bit off the edge...”

“I did. Only a tiny handful – enough to grow my own Matrix.” Missy walked him around the hovering globe of buried souls. “Here,” she said, pausing at a slightly lighter coloured piece of the orb. “It’s grown over itself, of course – healing. Some say the Matrix is a living thing. I left a scar – right _here_.”

“Those are just stories.” The Doctor assured her.

“Of course,” she agreed, “it was repaired, that’s why you can’t see it.”

They both stood in admiration of the terrible creation spinning, ever so slowly. The Doctor didn’t think it looked like a star or a planet. No. To him the Time Lord Matrix looked was a fly eye, covered in tiny segments, all of them watching, sucking in his kin from reality – feasting on their thoughts – using them as components in a super computer. It was something an enemy would create and yet it was of their own making. Locked away in memories that were not quite his, the Doctor thought he could see glimpses of its origin.

“Are you still thinking about the other Time Lords?” Missy asked.

“Of course.” He replied. “We should have had to fight our way to this point.” The Doctor held his hand up to stop her speaking. “If you’ve done something to arrange this, I’d rather not know,” he pleaded. He was already in way over his head. “How do we get in?”

“Touch it,” Missy steeled herself. “As I said, this is a prison. It’s easy enough to get in.”

*~*~*

The flash of light ended as abruptly as it began. Missy gripped her forehead, crying out at the initial rush of pain that threatened to tear all the flesh off her skull.  _It was exactly how she remembered it._ On her knees, she let out a sharp cry of agony before the pain vanished as the light had done and she was left sitting on an expanse of  _nothing_ . The Matrix was a computer programme and it took time to boot. The Doctor was on the floor beside her, equally disoriented by the flush of pain.

“Missy...” He groaned, crawling over the featureless ground.

“Wait – it’s starting...” She whispered.

Their clothes flickered first. Re-rendering. The Doctor’s suit was replaced with the scarlet robes of Gallifrey’s High Council. They ebbed out behind him, rippling in an artificial wind. The awful gold collar grew around his shoulders and neck, gaining weight as it cast itself into reality. He looked at it – stunned. He hadn’t worn the uniform in several thousand years.

Missy had guessed how the Matrix would dress her. It fed off intimidation, fear and torment so  _of course_ it chose the amethyst evening gown with its hundreds of embroidered stars. So beautiful – so  _horrific_ in her mind. She could barely stand to touch the soft silk or lace detail that squared off around her neck. Her hair unravelled, slipping free of its pins to fall around her shoulders. A pair of long, rose-gold earrings trembled  from her ears.

The night of the ball recreated.

“Theta...” Her voice shook.

“Koschei...” He replied, just as floored.

Missy lunged for him but missed. The blank world flickered. First with light – then texture. Sand welled at their knees. Heat fell across their faces. Two suns rose, entwined by light. A mountain range, capped in layers of ice and snow – all pink. Gallifrey’s stars were preparing to set. They tumbled helplessly. Missy watched as Gallifrey rose up out of the nothingness behind Theta, awash with vessels ducking between the buildings like insects in the jungle at dusk. The Doctor watched red grass grow behind Missy, covering the world in a carpet of shivering blood and beyond that, the walls of her father’s manor, renewed in all its splendour complete with grotesques peering from their advantageous perches.

“Of course...” Missy forced herself to stand on the freshly created surface. Sand slid off her gown in waterfalls. “It _had_ to be this night. Incredible,” she muttered, “how real a few streams of one’s and zeros can be.” The Matrix had woven a perfect fantasy. It even _smelled_ like Gallifrey in the afternoon – a unique mix of dust and absent rain. Failed promises washing about...

“I’d forgotten,” The Doctor admitted, “what this place was like...” The Gallifrey of his youth made his skin crawl.

“It’s not real,” she whispered, stepping carefully toward him. It was odd to see him dressed as one of _them_. The wrong face for the memory... When she visited this scene in her mind it was _the other Doctor._ The man before he learned to run  with a pair of frightened eyes. Those glassy orbs had closed over since then. “Remember that,” she urged him. “And remember what we came to do. This place tries to shift your focus. It pulls you about.” Missy demonstrated by taking hold of his cloak and dragging him closer. “Pushes you on the path _it wants_. We’re here to walk against the stream.”

“Don’t worry. I understand.” He promised. “Where is she, Missy?”

“Exactly where we left her,” Missy replied.

They turned their backs on the city and faced the field of shivering grass.

Missy led, parting the waist-high grass with her hands. The underside of the stalks were sharp as knives, slicing wherever they caught her skin. She ignored the simulated pain. It was impossible to die inside the Matrix. The programme only had two choices – reset over and over until the planet’s core ran out of energy to power the Matrix or release them – which it would never do. It had to be destroyed _from within_.

The Doctor eyed the approaching manor house warily. He cleared his throat and dug his feet in as the grass thinned out into tufts of weed. “We should do it here, Missy.”

She didn’t stop – hell, Missy barely missed a step forcing the Doctor to pursue. _One last time_. She had to see her daughter. Their little girl had died alone and Missy wasn’t about to let that happen when she was so close. Of course, The Doctor was probably right. It would be much easier to remain detached for the duration of the simulation – to limit their interaction with their daughter.

“I can pull the pin on this abomination of reality at any time,” she reminded The Doctor. “Let me do this. Consider it a graduation from that period of therapy you supervised. What good were all the tears if not for this?”

He stalked after Missy, muttering her name but he had trouble following her around the scattered rocks that had fallen from the cliff face and been rolled through the fields by centuries of wind. This was _her_ home and though she’d tried to share it with him he couldn’t help but feel like a stranger on its tortured façade. It mocked him at every turn, snapping at his ankles. “This is not a good idea. We agreed. Enter the Matrix – destroy it. Missy… Missy! Missy _slow down_.”

The Doctor finally got close enough to grasp her wrist. Missy shook him free and continued. The manor loomed. _Yes_. This was precisely how he remembered it. A little bigger than possible casting long, maleficent shadows. Solid. Not at all safe.

“This was the safest place in the world...” Missy whispered. “I told you once. I ran here to escape my fears but ever since that night I could never bear to visit, not even in my dreams.” For the first time in so long she felt a flicker of affection for the building return. Maybe it was because, like her little girl, the house had been a victim of the Time Lords. They’d taken almost everything from her. “Stop doing that.” Missy warned The Doctor, when he made another attempt to catch her hand. “If you don’t want to be here that’s _fine_. Turn around and head to the citadel. Wallow in its hell instead. It makes no difference to me.”

Of  _course_ it made a difference to her.

For a moment he looked over his shoulder at the city. Distance gave it perspective and a kind of abstract beauty. Primitive. Almost  _Earthly_ but he’d never say that to her face.

At the end of the field lay a gravel drive. Missy paused and he stopped beside her with a faint cloud of chalk-dust wafting from their feet. Light scattered across various windows in the house – more flickering to life as dusk settled. This was not purely a nightmare – reliving the dreadful night… The true horror of the Matrix was in its eternal reset. Day after day. Lives beginning and ending. It was a prison for the mind with intangible walls. It was so perfect you almost wanted to stay...

“What are you thinking?” The Doctor asked, when Missy failed to move.

She was waiting for something that neither of them could define. “Our daughter has been trapped in this place for a long time.” Missy replied. “And she’s still here which means whatever it was they wanted to learn from her-”

“-they haven’t,” he finished. “Because she never knew anything.”

“Exactly. That would have become evident very quickly so why keep her for thousands of years? I’ll admit that the Time Lord council isn’t the swiftest cog in the machine but even they would eventually come to the same conclusion. Any old idiot can make a light globe work if given enough time but no one can conjure truth from ignorance.”

The Doctor shifted uncomfortably. He tried not to think about how long their little girl had been in this place. It was too painful. Or – or was that Missy’s point? Neither of them wanted to think about the details of the situation for too long because it hurt which left plenty of scope for… “Oh...”

“Exactly...” Missy breathed. “You said it and I didn’t listen. Getting into this place was far too easy. What if they left her here _for us_.”

“You mean, they allowed you to discover her presence when you stole part of the Matrix in the hope that...”

“That I’d bring you back here.” Missy spun around, eyeing the artificial world with a fresh suspicion. “Try it.” Missy instructed.

“But I thought you wanted to-”

“Bloody _do_ as you are asked!”

He didn’t argue with Missy’s temper.  The Doctor took a small red rose from inside his pocket. “Right – are you going to tell me how this thing works?”

“I _did_ tell you how it works,” Missy insisted. “You didn’t listen. Regeneration gave you enormous ears and yet you never bloody use them.”

“I listened!” He protested. “All you said was, _‘pick a rose and hold it to the wind’_ but that makes about as much sense as a Dalek in a canoe. Unless-” The Doctor became distracted as he twisted the head of the rose from the stem. Its petals immediately fell onto his palm and were lifted into the air by a light wind. The velvety petals evaporated into crimson smoke which wafted in thick ribbons, disturbing reality. Ones and zeros – that’s all they were. “Oh, I see! You wrote a virus and delivered it into the Matrix with a flare of drama. How do we know when it’s worked?”

“A similar technique was used to decommission the nethersphere. Oh, don’t look so surprised. What was I supposed to do with it after you turned down my perfectly reasonable gift?”

“It’s not doing much...”

“Wait.”

“Missy – are we talking seconds or years… Narrow it down.”

“Minutes. No more. It’s highly infectious if you have the misfortune of a hard drive. Everything should just fade away.” They waited patiently but after five minutes had elapsed they both knew that something was wrong. “I don’t understand...”

“The Matrix is much larger than the piece you stole. Maybe it’s more robust?” He offered.

“No – this is a sledge hammer approach.” Missy plucked the rose stem from his hand and turned it around in her fingertips. “Odd,” she whispered, digging her nail into the surface. “It doesn’t quite feel-”

“-what?”

“Real.” Missy startled sharply and drop the stem onto the gravel. Then, without a word, she took a step towards the Doctor.

“Missy – what are you doing? I don’t understand...” He added, as her hand cupped the side of his face carefully. She was touching him reverently but her eyes searched his. “You’re scaring me.”

“What’s it like?” Missy asked, her voice low. It was almost silken.

“What’s _what_ like, Missy?” He reached up to take her hand away but she brought her other one up and a moment later he found himself being dragged down toward her. She hand no intention of kissing him. Missy was simply trying to get a better look at him.

“Existence,” she whispered.

He tried to wriggle out of her hold but her fingers were like claws. “Minutes or hours?” She asked.

“What – I don’t _what is going on_?” His hands were over hers.

“Theta. You’re not real…”

This time he managed to escape her – swatting wildly at Missy as she kept coming at him. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m not.” Missy turned serious. “You’re part of it, Theta. Part of this – this _reality._ ” Missy moved away from him and looked toward the house. It stood there, a piece of coal on the sunset. “Rassilon and those other fuckers definitely laid a trap but when did it start?” She turned on the Doctor but kept her distance. “Did we even land on Gallifrey? I thought – I _thought_ it was strange that you plucked up the courage to join me. So _unlike_ you, Doctor, to confront your demons. Too good to believe. Seems I was right. You’d _never_ come back here, Theta. You don’t have the nerve.”

“Missy – of _course_ I came. I wouldn’t let you do this alone. I swear. Missy. No. Put that _down_.”

She lined the laser screwdriver at his heart. “Look on the bright side,” she whispered. “If you’re right and you really are real, you’ll wake up outside the Matrix and be absolutely fine. However, if I’m right and you’re a subroutine designed to keep me busy then it’s all over. Fade to black. I know what I’d want if I turned out to be a programme.”

“This is insane.”

“Although I _am sorry_. Either way, this is going to hurt.”

She did not even hesitate. A shot of condensed light struck the Doctor in the chest. He stumbled backwards, arms flailing wildly as fire ripped through his blood and clawed its way along his nerves. He’d never felt pain like it before. It was furious. Consuming. He wanted to scream but the air was forced out of his lungs.

Missy watched with a passive look of horror. Eventually the Doctor fell to his knees, choking on his partially liquefied insides. “If you wake up on the other side,” she breathed, “ _run_ .”

“Missy...” The Doctor gurgled.

She stood over him and waited for the Matrix to erase him with a few passive flickers of light. The bastard thing was learning from her.

Except…

Except The Doctor didn’t disintegrate. Actually, he was looking a little better. He rocked forward onto his hands, coughed smoke from his lungs and then stumbled to his feet with a groan. “You  _shot_ me!”

“Of course I shot you, you’re not-” The words went cold in her throat. Missy looked down at her own hand. Her fingers were wound tightly around the laser screwdriver. Knuckles white. Ash smudged into her skin which flickered.

The laser screwdriver fell to the gravel.

Missy brought her hand up to her face and watched it fade away to nothing – her code unravelling.

She had just enough time to meet The Doctor’s horrified eyes as she ceased.

The Doctor stumbled forward but there was nothing left of Missy. Not even an echo.

He turned slowly, facing the last orange hue of Gallifrey’s smallest sun. The sky pressed down on his thoughts while the pair of shimmering galactic arms cast milky patterns over the dunes.

The Doctor was trapped inside the Matrix.

“You better hope that I don’t find you,” he whispered, to the Time Lords that were inevitably watching.


	30. Chapter 30

Missy landed her TARDIS on a jagged perch of stone. The mountains roared, surrounding her with the vicious howl of sand-laced gales that dragged all the way from the frozen poles before smashing into basalt. They dissipated with a hiss and flecks of rock, sheared clean. She’d expected the ranges to be worn down and soft – a tempered roll of hills covered in grass. They weren’t. Recent volcanism on Gallifrey had surged them into a second throe of life.

She stepped out onto a narrow band of rock that ran in front of her TARDIS door. Missy faced the scene with nothing beneath her toes except a stomach-churning drop. Several huge cracks split the sand dunes dividing them like glaciers where the ground had pulled apart leaving jagged voids in their wake. Sand poured in to fill them forming a stunning sequence of dry waterfalls. A different tectonic plate smashed into the mountain range behind her back, pushing more of the angry charcoal rock out from the crust, nearly doubling their size. Gallifrey’s citadel occupied a tiny outcrop of calm between the colossal forces. An island. An exhibit trapped under glass in a museum.

Carefully, Missy shifted herself along the cliff’s edge until there was enough room to tilt her head and admire the snow covered peaks above. Thick ledges of ice perched impossibly on their tips, waiting for a tremor to shake them free. Cold air sank in sheets arriving as a chill on her skin. Its menace was beautiful.

“Quiet now...” Missy whispered to her TARDIS. Its form twisted in on itself until the lurid red phonebox became the withered corpse of a tree latched into the bare rock with ghostly tendrils draped over the edge. Nothing wrong with her chameleon filter.

Alarming scars in the desert weren’t the only new feature on Gallifrey’s palette. In the distance the line of the horizon had been interrupted by a sharp cone of rock. A volcano, fresh from birth, puffed a casual trail of black, muddying the sunset.

“You be quiet too...” She narrowed her eyes uneasily at the mountain. One day its ire would turn on Gallifrey but not today.

*~*~*

Descending the mountain range took most of the night with starlight as her guide. Yes, she could have parked closer but the Time Lords were buried deep in paranoia during the last age of civilisation. They watched the flanks of the city with an intense obsession. Only a total fool would attempt a landing in full view.

An idiot like The Doctor.

“Bloody moron!” Missy hissed under her breath, as she sank behind a pale shadow.

The blue box _whooped_ into life, materialising on the flat. Its flashing light blared like a siren, attracting a patrol from the edge of the city. Missy unfolded her glasses and slid them onto her nose. She tapped the fine silver square frames and the image zoomed. Thirty – perhaps more. The red capes and bronze caps were gone replaced by latticeworks of metal and an expelled fibre made by dune beetles. The uniform left the Gallifreyan soldiers impervious to Dalek weapons. Not so good against human guns but there wasn’t much chance of one of them wandering by which was _exactly_ why Missy kept a small hand gun lashed to her upper thigh. Well that and it was her current aesthetic.

She was too far away to warn The Doctor of the approaching security force. A few minutes later he wound up exactly like a deer caught in the glare of a Hilux.

“Run!” She mouthed at his muppet-face, but of course he didn’t. He raised his hands – tattered sleeves rippling in the wind. She could see him down there spinning a pathetic lie about his sudden reappearance – cracking a joke – hovering around some passive-aggressive observation about the green tinge of their uniforms until the commander of the party grew bored and shot him square in the chest with their gun set to stun. Nonplussed, they watched his body fall backwards against his TARDIS where he jiggled about trying to fight the inevitable loss of consciousness.

_What the hell was he even doing here?_ Missy wondered. Sure, he was smart enough to work out exactly what Missy was up to and passably capable of tracking her TARDIS to roughly the correct time zone but _this…_ Actually dealing with emotionally challenging endings… That was not his thing _at all_ and she’d made no provisions for his sudden arriv al.

Missy shook his head as The Doctor was literally dragged  by his velvet coat  through the sand toward the city. He was going to need rescuing. ‘Knight in shining armour’ more like  _plot arc she didn’t have time for._

“Shit!” Missy snatched her glasses from her nose and pressed herself against the cold rock. She was safe in the shadows, protected by the vaulting stone. Worried? Of course not. Only a little bit. Maybe they just wanted to talk to him... The idiot _did_ save Gallifrey from certain destruction – could be a celebratory parade in the works. Missy flinched. After that he’d sought of stolen Time, killed a General, usurped the government and left the place in a state of mayhem so  weighing that up there probably wasn’t going to be an abundance of confetti…

She slid down the rock face, knees pres sed  against her chin.  _I should have changed_ , she thought  idly  to herself, picking at the flowing material. There were scorch marks in the fabric and endless threads unravelling around the seams. Her silver pin caught the moonlight and she wondered if she’d lose it somewhere in the sands as she had in the forests of the ship. The back of her head hurt if she pressed it too hard on the stone despite the wound being erased.  _Pain is memory_ . A phantom.  Part of her wondered if it  shadowed Bill around, screeching in her head as she followed the rivers and streams of the universe.

_This is a distraction_ .

Missy gave her head a light knock to bring her thoughts  rushing into focus. If the Time Lords had The Doctor they’d soon know about her presence on Gallifrey and when that happened her chances of making it to the Matrix were next to nothing. Her careful plan had been thrown into chaos  by Theta’s lack of care .

The city clung to the bedrock opposite her chosen mountain. Its golden columns were dull in the moonlight – shifting into the same ambient grey as everything else.  There was no way to sneak through the city  so she’d have to find another way.

Missy dragged her nails over the rock in frustration.

_What else?_

Machinery traipsed across the sand to begin the hopeless task of moving The Doctor’s TARDIS. There was no point. Missy had wasted years of her life trying to steal that bloody blue box. Its obstinacy was the only reason  Theta got away with a broken chameleon circuit.  The TARDIS had a neat little trick of increasing its weight exponentially until it weighed roughly the same as the mountain range.  If that failed it’d simply hitch a ride on the nearest black hole and take itself for a spin.

_The tunnels._

The thought settled in Missy’s mind and refused to be shooed away. There were tunnels under Gallifrey – an entire honeycomb of mostly ruined infrastructure that was probably barely passable by this stage of the planet’s evolution.  _What had Theta said about them?_ She’d only been half listening the first time and  _that_ was several thousand years ago. More. Something about Gallifrey’s city being built on the ruin of an older  city . There was entrance near the mountains. She remembered that  particular  detail because he’d dragged her off to look for it near her house when they were children. He’d been convinced that the entrance was  concealed by an avalanche but all the two young boys found were anxious yellow lizards sunning themselves.

*~*~*

O n Gallifrey, the nights were as long as the days. One of its misshapen moons was missing from its  lonely haunt . The runt of the litter, it had probably been absorbed by one of the others or knocked out of orbit like a marble.

The first thread of dawn appeared as Missy slid down the final boulder and landed amongst the long crimson grass. It rustled against the base of the mountain – a static ocean forever picking at the shore.  Immediately  the blades snapped at her flesh, slicing a path between her thumb and forefinger. She hissed and sucked  on the blood, swearing  in the space of a warm breath .

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

Onto the grass.

It was a misconception to  believe that the crimson fields were named superficially. Actually it was an old name bestowed by the farmers who’d colonised the area  long before the dunes. These nameless souls named  the grass for the blood left behind. Fields and fields of predatory grass.

‘ _You’ll be glad of it one day,’_ her father had assured her, when she’d come home bleeding from every limb. _‘There is nothing safer than a prickly exterior.’_

M issy donned a set of leather gloves before wading  further through it . She didn’t have to go far. Her home lay as a ruin. A few of the stone walls peeked out from the field like a headstone. She used it as a reference, keeping close to the foot of the mountain range until she came upon the natural cave Theta had taken her to. She wasn’t sure if it was a child’s perspective or the movement of the ground since but instead of a small opening she found a colossal void, gaping at the morning.

Triangular, it had formed naturally from water freezing in a hairline fracture. Rubble complicated the entrance forcing Missy to climb awkwardly over large blocks and stumble hopelessly through the cricket-balls  sized pieces  in between. The only upside was the lack of grass which couldn’t survive the near constant shadow. It was only during the earliest moments of dawn – like right now – that  the face of the cave was touched by sunlight. Even that was gone by the time Missy reached the polished basalt  covering the entrance.

“Well, well, well...” She taunted the expanse of violence. “You better not be a bat-infested waste of my time.” Missy warned the cave.

The small torch she’d brought was deceptively powerful, cutting through the darkness with a green light specially designed to reveal common Time Lord laser snares invisible to the naked eye. All it found at the present were lumps of basalt that had fallen from the ceiling  and  nicked chunks out of the ground.

Her footsteps echoed, rolling over each other as the sound travelled deeper. The cave was immense – definitely bigger than she remembered.

_Theta grabbed Koschei’s wrist and dragged him into the darkness. He held a stick wrapped in lamp oil above his head and set it alight causing Koschei to shriek. The primitive fire sat in the darkness like one of the stars showing them nothing of the cave and everything of each other. A pair of children._

“ _You first...”_

“ _No – you.”_

“ _This was your stupid idea!”_

“ _And you said that you weren’t afraid of the dark.”_

_Koschei snatched the stick with a whoosh from the flame. “Fine.”_

Missy imagined his smile fading  into the throat of the cave.  She followed, trying to ignore the constant intrusion of her memories.  He’d held her hand that day.

Instead of heading down hill the tunnel had been unnaturally snapped  in half  and forced upwards by  a column of rock  erupting underneath. That was a terrible sign for the state of any potential  subterranean tunnels but she carried on anyway, stowing the torch in her teeth while she climbed the step-like rocks until she made it to a landing. Missy straightened.  B rushed the dust from her skirt.

_Ah…_ Now she remembered why Theta has been so keen to explore these tunnels.  Carvings were gouged into the walls on both sides in a disorderly ramble. Graffiti – idly scratched while their authors huddled away from passing storms. Missy approached a thick patch and placed her gloved fingers against the indents, following them through the rock. Images of coarsely formed forests. Eight-legged crabs. Hand prints traced with ochre paint like sprays of blood. Missy’s glove fit neatly inside one of them. A chill ripped through her flesh and she immediately withdrew from the wall.

T here were no forests on Gallifrey. No mention of them in the records.  She got the impression a large portion of their history had been squirrelled away.  Rassilon’s dream of the grand race of Time Lords began with a secret, one that he’d kept for a very long time.

Missy hitched up her skirts and scaled the last few metres of incline until she emerged at a precipice. Her proclivity for being _right_ about everything was an annoying curse. The violent geology had  cut the tunnel in half. The rest of it lay below in the darkness beyond the reach of her torch. This place had been eaten by the fucking planet.

“Dammit!” She growled, slumping to the ground. Her legs dangled over the edge, kicking irritably at the abyss. There were no spare humans to nudge off the edge to gauge the depth. No _wonder_ The Doctor kept a companion handy.  Missy scooped a stone off the ground nearby and chucked the weighty thing into the chasm. It bounced off several surfaces. _Chink. Crash. Chink._ Then an extended _whoosh_ as it dropped into nowhere. Missy counted to eight before the faint impact.  Her head fell back in an ominous cackle. “Come on, then.” She goaded herself. “Off we trot.”

T orch in one hand, Missy used her left to cling onto the sharp  holds , inching carefully down to the first outcrop. She landed on her knees.

“Bastard piece of primordial gunk!” She hissed, before peering at the next ‘step’. This one was far enough to make her reconsider the lunacy of caving under Gallifrey. File under, _‘shit The Doctor would do’_ she thought, unkindly to herself.  Maybe she should have stuck with the original plan and crossed into the old quadrant of the city – fight her way through the outskirts and sneak into the government chambers. Too bloody late now. Shuffling _down_ a dangerous escarpment was one thing, clawing back up was something else entirely and, quite frankly, she didn’t have the shoes for it.

T he next landing she missed. It was a loose hand hold that served as her undoing. The rock came free in her  glove , cleaving away from the cliff at the last moment. She spent a fraction of a second teetering against the wall – a torch in one hand, useless rock in the other. Her back arched, trying to press her stomach to the wall but gravity wrapped its tendrils around her waist and dragged her  free .  Missy tilted backwards so far that her shoes slipped off the narrow ledge. She shrieked, twisting in the air so that her hands reached toward the ground, ready to buffer her fall.

A  metre. Two.  _Five_ before she hit the unforgiving rock.  Her left hand  snapped to the side with a sickening  _crunch_ of bone. The torch flew free and bounced off into the  void at the end of the ledge leaving her in perfect darkness. Her right forearm was ne xt . It met a jagged surface that dug in with razor edges. Gasping, the slope rolled Missy off to the side. She tried to reel around  and latch onto the ledge but her hips were off and the rest of her swiftly fell out of sight  in pursuit of the torch.

* ~*~*

The Doctor’s body was dragged all the way to the first paving stones laid at the outskirts of the city. They were chipped – cracked and some entirely eaten away by the encroaching dunes.  The mystic enchantments written into their clay had worn into sand before Gallifrey had  walls.

He was lifted onto a levitating stretcher and the convoy continued, escorting The Doctor toward the citadel. A shield snapped over the stretcher – gold and crimson swirls of energy.

“Tell the President that we’ve found him.” One of the soldiers said.

“And the other one?”

“Keep looking. There were two time anomalies which means there’s a second TARDIS out there.”

“Finding it sir,” the other soldier protested, “that could take _forever_.”

The other soldier shook his head. “If The Master has returned to Gallifrey then we know exactly where they’re headed.” He tapped the pavement with his boot. “Right here. Now hurry up. We need to secure The Doctor inside the Matrix before he wakes.” Then he turned and eyed the mountain range sinking into the sunrise. Ice peaks blushing. Sky burning gold. A rogue Time Lord hiding between the cracks.

*~*~*

Hidden below the ledge was a slope, polished from a ruthless uplift. It caught her mid-fall and left Missy tumbling uncontrollably.  She shed items on the way down. A hairclip. A shoe.  The contents of her pockets. All of it rolled in unison chasing the bouncing torchlight.

T he end came with another pit of rubble.  Loose – it absorbed the impact and Missy found herself nearly buried in the smooth stones  some of which shattered with the force . Her torch wasn’t far away. It lay on an angle, projecting its eerie coloured light across the ground. Instead of black rock, the ground took on the green hue.

_Bone_ , not rock. An ocean of  eyeless  calcium and she was drowning in it.

Missy recoiled and tried to drag herself out of the death tide but was immediately reminded of her broken wrist. Her elaborate swearing that followed used Old High Gallifreyan not spoken in several million years. “Perfect. Just. Perfect.”

Slowly, she was able to wade out of the bone and sit on its unstable surface. She laid her injured arm gently on her thigh and tore the lace off the hem of her skirt which she wrapped tightly around the break. It only had to hold the limb straight for a few hours while it healed but it hurt like shit.  That was the problem with stupid human faces. Time Lords used them to snap in and out of other people’s lives. Live a dozen  times . Cheat the end but in the meantime the same frailties that made them easy to repair also left them open to failure.

T ears splashed onto her skirt. She wiped them briskly off with the back of her good hand.  More appeared, leaking out from the corners of her eyes. Missy cursed those as well. They interfered with her vision and general aura of evil.

W hil e immobilised she decided to take a closer look at the bones collected in the cavern. She’d been in plenty of nests decorated with kills. More than a few battlefields littered with corpses. Surprisingly most ruins were actually pretty bare – picked clean by scavengers.

She fished a skull  from the deluge and held it to the light. It was small – the size of a child  but thick . As she looked around she realised that they  _all_ were. The bones were tiny and yet they didn’t look like those of children. The plates  on the skulls had knit together, almost vanished entirely – something that only happened during adulthood.

Missy tossed it idly over her shoulder where it shattered against another one.

“Perfect. Behold the glorious beginnings of Gallifrey. A bunch of dead short-arses. Great lot of help you lot are. Couldn’t leave me a nice schematic or map? No ancient jewel? Nothing.”

Missy flopped backwards on to the bone, treating it like a bed. Her wrist throbbed and she was pretty sure that she was bleeding from several other gashes that she couldn’t be bothered to patch. Like it or not she had to rest. There was no point pushing on with a dicky hand.  With a soft  _click_ she turned the torch off and clutched it protectively to her chest.

There was nothing alarming in the darkness. Actually, she found the nothingness a comfort – like a blanket wrapped around her, keeping her safe.  Her eyes fluttered closed.

‘ _See?’ A wide-eyed boy crawled out into the tunnel. ‘They did this. The Tunnel-builders.’_

_The other child folded his arms and leaned rather casually against the wall. ‘Why tunnels?’_

_The Doctor frowned, creating the beginning of a sizeable line that would one day stretch the breadth of his forehead. It was the most obvious thing in the world to him. ‘Fire mountains,’ he replied. ‘Everything is underground to stop it getting smashed by flying rocks and stuff.’_

_Koschei narrowed his eyes at Theta. They’d barely been at the academy six weeks and already they’d started sneaking off to scratch around in the dirt. If his father found him all the way out here instead of in the city he’d be toast. ‘This place is gnarly,’ Koschei complained. ‘Why do you wanna come down here anyways?’_

_Theta’s pout became an insatiable grin. ‘Because it’s neat!’ He replied, with flecks of starlight stuck to his eyes. ‘And because they go alllll the way to the academy. We can sneak in and out whenever we want.’_

“ _There’s these things called, ‘doors’, Thete...” Koschei drawled._

“ _Doors are boring.”_

Missy’s eyes snapped open. Her chest arched up with a gasp. She’d been asleep – dreaming of moments long forgotten. A groan returned her to reality. She turned on the torch and momentarily recoiled from the bones. A quick inspection of her wrist found it tender but otherwise intact. Whatever Bill had done, Missy’s time energy felt stronger than it had been in several thousand years. Indeed she suspected but had no inclination to prove a brand new set of regenerations. Nonetheless, she left the lace in place.

The bones were contained in a reasonably small pit which she crawled across on all fours. Her missing shoe she never found and so, as she emerged on the rock at the other side, she rolled onto her arse and tugged off the remaining shoe, leaving it in the tunnel.

Barefoot and slightly pissed, Missy stood up at the entrance to the next tunnel and glared down its throat. It could have been an ancient sea creature, entombed between the shifting plates with jaws made of granite except, exactly like the grotesques on her father’s manor, it was a simple monstrosity of rock. The universe was the most perverse creator of them all, sculpting pure terror into the soul of Gallifrey. She’d always joked that the planet had black heart and here it was, facing her. Missy stepped straight into it, padding softly along in her socks.

These were the original tunnels, left in place while the rest of the mountain range shifted up. This was _not_ the way she and Theta had come as boys. They’d never gotten very far, too afraid of shadows and howling wind. As the passageway narrowed, it twisted in on itself, heading to the right and out underneath the sand dunes. Missy frowned. She didn’t understand. These were meant to end somewhere beneath the city but every step she took led her further off course.

The change in the surface was subtle. Gradually the basalt smoothed from its rough-cut appearance into a featureless coating until the rock was entirely replaced by volcanic glass. Once a liquid, it dripped down like candle wax and made ominous reflections out of her torchlight. Finally, the decline was interrupted by sets of stairs – three or four at a time. With every set of stairs Missy felt the tunnels sinking down around her, pressing on the air with a distinct whisper of malice. Bones were one thing. The dead could do no harm but this was different. It was as though there was something _living_ here. Missy couldn’t tell if it was another memory or something that still drew breath.

She lifted her torch higher and let its green light guide her until the tunnel ended with a slab of wood, flush against the black glass with a single symbol etched deeply in its surface. Missy’s torch averted immediately, as though touched by fire.

Her hearts hammered wildly.

_Every_ Time Lord revered that  image as though it had been branded directly  into their soul at birth. The engineer of civilisation and the end of all that was dark.  The loneliest soul perched on the cusp of reality, both mad and loved by chaos’ erratic will.  _Oh_ how she admired him in her youth.  Wanted to be him...

“Omega...” she whispered, returning her light to the wooden surface. It was a seal, locking something in or keeping everything out. The recent heat and tectonic activity had caused the wood to shrink and crack. In fact, as Missy edged closer she could have sworn it was held upright with nothing but its own weight. She tested the assumption and immediately fled with a surprised squeal as the entire thing teetered on the brink and slammed inward, crashing like thunder so loud she ducked with her hands over her ears. “That probably wasn’t a good idea.” She admitted to herself, as the sound rumbled around inside the mountain. The whole place had a distinctly, ‘tomb’ feel about it and opening tombs was best left to idiots that didn’t mind being cursed.

*~*~*

T he throne-like chair at the end of the council chambers  had been lounged in  for so long  that Rassilon had practically grown into the surface, moulding the seat to his form. Defiantly, he’d kept the face from his  embarrassing  exile.  He wanted, ever so badly, for The Doctor to find himself nose-to-nose with the same set of eyes he’d expelled into the abyss. Ghosts were a powerful tool if you wanted to wield fear. Being feared was essential to survival.

A hologram sprang to life in the centre of the table. Rassilon inched forward, narrowing is gaze at the image of his general. “Well?” He barked, impatient.

“Ready, sir.” He replied.

“Don’t fuss about.”

“Understand, sir.”

Rassilon watched at The Doctor was uploaded into the Matrix. One second he was there, laid out on the stretcher and the next he’d been de-molecularised and sucked into the sphere.

“Done, sir. There’s no key.”

“The Doctor stopped carrying a TARDIS key as soon as he realised we meant to take back our stolen property.” It was one of only a handful of items the Matrix was unable to absorb along with confession dials and pocket watches.

“Sir – what happens now?” The General asked, backlit by the Matrix and its unusual glow. It wasn’t uniform across the spherical surface. Like a star, tendrils of it lashed out, churning under the influence of strong magnetic fields.

“I should have thought that was obvious,” Rassilon drawled. “Get back out there and look for the other one. The Master is not sitting idly by, sipping champagne waiting for an invitation.”

The aeons  skirted by but Rassilon was certain they took with them a great deal of common sense, stripping it from his fellow Time Lords. While he watched, they sank further and further into the ground with the citadel crumbling in on top of them. It was such a disappointment. What had become of his illustrious dream? He  _was_ going to rebuild the empire but was loathe to admit he could not do it on his own. Those other great minds had taken certain knowledge with them to the grave. All that was left was to retrieve the remaining threads of it and try and make something of the scraps.

* ~*~*

“Man you were punch drunk when you threw this shit together...” Missy mouthed at the room behind the seal. She’d expected a lost city – pillars and crumbling temples stretching toward the darkness – a nest beneath the dunes but instead the tunnel presented her with a low ceiling and a rather underwhelming den that looked as though it had been lived in by a recluse.

She stepped into the room.  To her left the glass wall had been lined with a bookshelf made of the same ivory wood. The scrolls that once lined its shelves had disintegrated to nothing and existed only as a layer of sand underfoot. A grass woven mat had survived, pushed to the far end of the room where something resembling a bed had once stood. A pile of broken wood resembled a chair while a table slanted awkwardly, one leg eaten clean away spilling the contents over the stone. Broken glass. A few bone sculptures. It was all extraordinarily old.  Ten million years, perhaps longer. The stillness of the cave was the only reason any of it had survived.

Omega’s secret lab. There was nothing else it could be.  Time Lords had been searching for it since the beginning imagining all kinds of vast treasure troves and yet – well – for lack of a better term it was a  _hovel_ .  A distinctly sad remnant  from a dream.

Missy pressed her palm against her head and closed her eyes.

Things swam about in her mind , looking for the surface.  _I’ve been here before._ There were moments between the seconds that she could see the room anew – like there had been something left inside her the day the loom finished her last thread.

_Like Theta_ .

Was there more to their friendship than a chance encounter on a cliff top? Were they drawn to each other because of something else… Something not entirely theirs…

Missy tried to shake off the thought but it clung to her ruined clothes as she walked around the room, avoiding the pools of glass with her sock-covered feet. In the depths she found an item that had not been savaged by time.  A ring.

There were as many stories about Omega as there were stars in the universe and yet at the beginning, before the legends gathered, he’d been a Gallifreyan. Part of a trilogy of fools along with The Great Other and Rassilon himself. Men, not gods. Missy’d always fancied stories about Omega because unlike the others, he was completely  _mad_ – an accusation levelled at her feet more than once.

That may not have been true either.

She slipped the relic into her skirt pocket and backed out of the room. This was not what she had intended to find and it did her absolutely no good.

* ~*~*

Escaping the tunnels turned into an impossibility.

Falling down a cliff was one thing – climbing out of it was something else entirely. There was nothing to dig her claws into and on every attempt to scale the ramp of glass she ended up smacking into the surface and tumbling all the way down into the pit of bones. Missy wasted _days_ skirting around the edges, searching ledge s and fissures in the rock. She returned every few dozen hours to Omega’s room to sleep on the floor among the dust of Gallifrey’s past then started again until her torch died. Left in darkness, Missy crumbled to the floor in exhaustion. A prisoner to her own folly.

No way out. Such a simple, brutal fact that had been the undoing of lifeforms since the beginning.

“Shit!” So _stupid_.  There was no spare ladder of climbing equipment tucked under her skirts. This was meant to be a quick frolic into the city not some Indiana Jones rubbish. If she was going to die in a cave at least let it be with some clever, interesting trap so her body might scare an adventurer or two. Not _this._ This was just embarrassing  and Missy absolutely refused to die with mediocrity.

What about The Doctor? Rassilon was in charge of the city and although murder wasn’t his jibe there was a well of animosity between the pair searching out a break point.  Considering he’d thrown the consciousnesses of previous Doctor’s into the Matrix it seemed logical that he’d do the same to the genuine article.  It was the perfect prison.  Once that happened  it would not take Rassilon long to uncover Missy’s  plan to destroy the Matrix.  S he’d never get within twenty feet of the damn thing  after that.

The only thing she knew for certain is that she couldn’t waste any more time sitting on a pile of bones.

Right well, what did she have? Missy felt her other wrist in the darkness.  _A vortex manipulator._ Okay. Okay. That might work. She didn’t  _dare_ inch into the future but perhaps a duck into the past when this place wasn’t such a mess might help… Just far enough to get a  literal leg up  out of the tunnels . A few thousand years. That ought to do it.

She gave it a jab and felt her body yanked sharply out of one time zone before being unceremoniously tossed into the next.

Bootleg time travel.  Old Jack -y-boy was right. She had to give it up before she left one limb in the wrong time zone.  Playing it, ‘ fast and loose ’ with plate tectonics was a pretty irresponsible sport.

Light poked through a few cracks in the cave ceiling revealing a comparably gentle incline toward the exit. There was no sign of the ominous graveyard. Those  bodies  must have poured in from a side chamber not yet revealed. She shuddered to think of them waiting behind the walls… Actually – the entrance to Omega’s lair had vanished as well. That was lurking deeper under the mountain, beyond reach.

Missy immediately started up the slope toward the exit.  She emerged from the din covered in dust. A few hours later she  freed herself from the mountain range and came face to face with a pair of  suns affixed to the zenith.  Beneath sat her father’s manor, risen from death. The volcano on the horizon was gone and the mountain range shrunk back to its proper scale. There were no cracks in the desert and the fallen pieces of the city had been propped back into position.

_Whoops_ , she thought,  _too far._

At this point,  Missy should have left well enough alone. Reversed time to its proper place and continued her search for The Doctor –  _but she didn’t._

Lured toward the building, Missy entered the field of whispering grass. Her pupils shrank to pin pricks in the sudden glare. Midday heat bore down on her while the sand underfoot scorched through her socks. Nothing grew except the grass and a few strange skeletal trees that had died in their perches on the mountain slopes. Her TARDIS was not among them.

She wondered how  far back this was. Had she even been born? Had her father been born…

With no Doctor to catch her hand and pull her  away from temptation, Missy navigated the  grass, climbed the steps on the porch  and dipped her head inside the front door.

_It smelled like home._ Drooping yellow flowers imported from another star system left a heavy scent on the air which pushed the dust away. The building’s stone frame was carved from the nearest mountain flank and mimicked the range when the light changed. At the height of the day it was always black – a yawning hole in the expanse. Missy loved to vanish inside where it was so cool that water condensed on the walls, dripped down and collected in a pool at the centre of each room.

There were voices in the lounge room.

Missy folded herself into the kitchen, ducking beneath the slate bench. A flare of colour caught her attention. Left forgotten on the floor was a tiny handmade doll with rough threads of straw-blonde hair and blue eyes stitched in. Trembling, Missy rescued it from the tiles and held it close.  _It belonged to her daughter._

‘ _No – no I quite agree.’_ Her father’s muffled voice lifted in the air. _‘If what you say is true.’_

‘ _Oh,’_ the other voice, another man whose words were uncharacteristically sharp, replied. _‘You can be sure of that. We have carried out extensive research. She is a danger to herself and others.’_

Missy’s blood turned to ice. Rassilon. In her home. Talking calmly to her father who was  _meant_ to be protecting her. She snuck out of the kitchen and headed around the corner to the right, away from the living room but toward the staircase that led to the second floor. Her feet automatically avoided the squeaking boards, aiding her silent ascent. The house was naturally dark – even in the heat of the day  and had to be lit by a strange mix of lamp light and biofluorescence grown into the glass adornments.  I t reminded her of a civilisation she’d found beneath a sea.

She crossed straight to her daughter’s room. Part of her expected the universe to reach out and still her hand but the doorknob turned and she was met with an empty bedroom. A shudder of air escaped her lungs. Missy closed the door and  moved to the bed, looking down on the star-studded sheets and one-eared bear reclined against the pillow.  She felt like she was living in a world of a glass. As though its details would shatter the moment she  tried  to touch any of it.  The universe actively protected itself from paradox.

Maybe this wasn’t real at all…  In her nightmares Missy found herself trapped in the Matrix, reliving death over and over, standing outside the house as it shuddered into flame and ash. A half-life.  Or this was a final breath before the end and she was still laying in the debris of the ship, approaching the lips of the black hole with a Cyber army under foot.

She touched the bedspread and felt the springs beneath resist.  Missy set the doll beside the bear.

_Creak._

Missy whirled around as the cupboard door inched open. A young girl crawled out . Red hair. Freckles. Eyes as green as Earth’s forests. Missy froze.

“You look different...” The girl spoke first, tilting her head curiously at her mother. “The _hair_ ,” she added, in a mannerism that mimicked The Doctor.

“You – _ah –_ know who I am?” Missy swallowed her shock  as the girl approached.

She folded her arms with a frown. “Mum, where’s dad?”

Missy didn’t have the faintest idea how to answer. She placed her gloved-palm to her forehead, feeling faint. Somehow her daughter was alive and pouting with a severity she’d only ever seen in Theta’s brow. Missy knelt on the floor, opened her arms and dragged the little girl into her grip. Her daughter’s arms were folded but that didn’t matter to Missy as she cuddled her tight until her daughter squeaked in protest.

“You’re hurting me!”

Missy relinquished her grip a little, leaning back  to brush a few locks of red hair from her daughter’s forehead.  She gazed in amazement.  Alive. Real. Not a trick.

_ Knock. Knock. Knock. _

Both heads turned to the door. Her daughter leaned i n to whisper, “It’s the nasty president!”

Missy bundled her into  the cupboard. “Stay here!” She hissed,  pushing her in between the clothes until she was completely hidden. “Mummy will come back for you. Not a sound. Promise?”

“Promise...”

Missy closed the cupboard door,  those green eyes vanishing into the darkness, then raced  over to the bed. She perched on the edge, stealing the teddy just in time. The door opened. Rassilon stepped in  and found a reckless Time Lord staring out the window toward the mountains  fussing with a stitch in a child’s toy.

“ Another face, my – my. You’re burning through your regeneration cycle rather quick.”

The edge of Missy’s lip curled into a smile. If only Rassilon knew how many faces she’d  _ really _ had. More than him, she’d wager. Enough personalities layered on top of each other to send her a fraction mad.

“And yours is all line-y,” she countered. “Time you traded it in for a new one or have you been in that shell so long you’re worried something might fall off if yo u switch things up a bit?  The last Time Lord that refused to  regenerate ended up making a lovely puddle on the ground. Do you want to know what flesh and time energy look like  liquefied ? ”

“Insolence.  It really must be you . Are you still calling yourself, ‘The Master’ or did you grow out of that ludicrous tag?”

Missy placed the teddy bear lovingly on the bed. “What are you doing in my house, Mr President? I hope it’s not a social call because I’m not feeling particularly receptive. It’s this face,” she gestured to her slightly manic eyes, “I just don’t have as many manners as I used to.”

“I’m choosing to ignore the litany of time-laws you’re breaking  by crossing into an old time , Koschei, because frankly I’m not your nanny. If you shatter your own time stream it’s nothing to me. I exist outside the tiny fabric of your reality.”

She could feel her eyes rolling as he spoke. Rassilon was exactly as she remembered him. A sanctimonious nutjob who thought himself a god. “Why are you here?” She asked again.

He wanted to ask her the same question but didn’t.  “Your father and I are greatly concerned for the safety of the child.  We need to run some tests to make sure that no harm will come to her as she ages. ”

“ That is going to be very difficult.”

Rassilon maintained his distance from every surface. Not even his long brown travelling cloak dared to brush against a wall. “And why is that?”

Missy stood and faced him. Dammit. He was still taller than her. Next face she was going to make sure she towered over him. Petty – perhaps but worth it.  Rassilon’s gaze dropped to Missy’s filthy socks. She narrowed her eyes and offered absolutely no explanation for her appearance. “Theta got here first.”

“Theta is at the ball.”

“Theta and I are  _ both _ at the ball,” Missy corrected, disguising her sharp intake of breath.  _ It’s tonight.  _ _ The vortex manipulator had brought her to the brink. _ “He and I have seen a few sunrises since then.”

“How long has it been...”

“Long enough to watch  those same stars turn to dust… We had a  _ spat _ .”

“ Big surprise.”

“ He beat me here. Thinks our daughter will do better raised away from Gallifrey.  Theta is of a mind to educate her on Earth but I told him, ‘over my dead body would he dump her on that backwater’  so if you don’t mind, I’m going to go find him and give him a piece of my mind.”

Missy _almost_ pulled off the rouse. Rassilon bought the anger in her voice but not her story wholesale. As she passed the door frame, Rassilon took her by the front of her coat and slammed her into the stone. A button tore free, bouncing across the floor and under the bed. Missy yelped as her head met the frame with a disturbing _crack_. A moment later, a warm trickle of blood made its way down her neck until it was soaked up by her collar.  Reality blurred.

“ Stay a while...” Rassilon growled beneath his breath, then dragged her down the hall. “ Theta can wait.”

*~*~*

“Prick!” Missy spat, testing her restraints. Rassilon and a few of his dispensable goons tied her to her _own_ chair with steel rope. “Aren’t you afraid this might put a dent in the, ‘nice-god’ image you’ve been trying to fashion? Spoiler alert. Everyone knows you’re a  total _-”_

One of the guards smacked her across the face with a baton.  Missy spat blood and coughed a little more out of her lungs.  Rassilon raised his hand and the guard backed away.

“Violence is regrettable but I am short of time.”

Missy licked blood from her lips. “Embrace the irony.”

“Crossing your personal time line is extremely dangerous. I doubt even someone as careless as _you_ would risk trapping yourself in a paradox.”

“Didn’t you get the memo,  Raz ? I’m  _ mad _ . I conquer galactic arms for a laugh before lunch and toss a few virgins into a volcano as a canapé. You think I’m afraid of those paradox creatures? I keep one as a pet. Called it Charlie. It’s got a good set of teeth.  Might even paint a few of its claws to match my- ”

“ You’re  _ exactly _ like him.” Rassilon observed casually. “Full of nonsense. You spurt it out like a squid spits ink thinking you can hide behind the volume of lunacy.”

“ I am  _ nothing _ like him.” It felt like a lie, even as it left her lips.

Rassilon’s eyes were large, cold and grey. “We found her almost straight away, Koschei,  hiding in a cupboard . Your cover story needs work. Theta isn’t here so I ask again, what is your purpose?” She didn’t offer anything in reply. Rassilon sighed. “Fine.  You can wait until after the ball. A bit of silence might sober you up. You – stay here and watch her.” He added, nodding at the guard that had hit her more than once.

He left her tied up in the attic with her new pal. The guard wasn’t particularly talkative but Missy assumed that was because he’d been grown in a lab. Time Lord guards weren’t known for overt violence, especially against their own but there’d been whispers of Rassilon’s personal defence force, loyal to  _ him _ rather than Gallifrey. It was only much later that the depth of his depraved acts would come to light.

Missy looked around the attic. It was an enormous space, taking up the entire top of the house with a bank of small windows running along both sides. They were angled high and looked at nothing except the sky which had begun to fade. One of Gallifrey’s stars was dropping faster than the other. Night inched closer.

_ Tonight was the last night . _

“Hey gorgeous. Yep. That’s you with the gold skull cap.” Missy tried to catch her guard’s attention. “Don’t happen to have the time, do you?”

Silence.

“Oh gosh. Don’t tell me you’re one of those, ‘strong, silent’ types because I get bored quickly and if we’re going to spend a few hours together I  _ promise _ you’ll tire of it before me. I once talked the eye stalk off a Dalek. You wanna see hilarious? Try putting a human  _ inside _ a Dalek and listen to them beg.  Not a fan of Dalek jokes? More of a Cyber boy. Oh I bet. Get a look at your breastplate, I’d say you’re half way there. ”

Nothing.

“Come on… You expect me to believe that you’re having a grand old time working for that ancient c-” She was about to wander off into another rant when the attic hatch popped open and her father’s head emerged.

“Out!” Barked the soldier.

Her dottery old dad raised his hand which was presently attached to a teacup and saucer.  Age sank his eyes deep into his sockets while swirls of white hair were lopped off at his shoulder. “Thought you might like a spot of tea.” He  offered .

The soldier couldn’t think of a good excuse to refuse so he nodded sharply.

The older Gallifreyan climbed the last few steps into the attic and wandered over to the guard. “Tea always does a spot of good, I find.” He waited while the guard took the cup and sniffed it as though it was the first time he’d seen one.

“You can go.”

“Yes – suppose I should. Just – one more thing-” her father showed no sign of the stun weapon  until it fired from inside his jacket. The cup shattered and tea splashed everywhere as the soldier hit the floor.

“Dad!” Missy exclaimed, mostly in shock. She’d never seen her father attack anything. He’d always been a placid force in her life.

“Hi baby,” he replied. “I’d ask what you’ve done to your hair but  that feels like a long story.” Her father untied her immediately. “Think we better put this chap in your place,” he added. “I’m not sure how long those things last.”

Missy helped him left the guard into the chair and together they tied him up. “What are you doing striking up a deal with Rassilon?” Missy asked, when they were finished. “I told you, he’s-”

“Relax, little one.” Her father cut her short. “I had to keep him talking. Don’t you want to know why he’s been so persistent?”

Missy shook her head. “It doesn’t matter just – shut up a minute, won’t you?”

He was going to reprimand her for the language but his daughter had latched onto him, hiding against his chest. He ran one of his hands through her unfamiliar hair and odd looking clothes. It wasn’t unusual for Gallifreyans to pop up in the wrong  order but it was the first time for him. “How long has it been? That long...” he added, when she failed to reply. “ You shouldn’t be here when the other you gets home,” he cautioned.

Missy gripped more tightly.  _ It would all be over by then. _

He knew without asking that something was about to go terribly wrong. “You’re my angel, Koschei,” he kissed her forehead and cupped her face in his hands, “but you can’t stay here.”

“A cup of tea,” Missy pleaded. “One – before I go.”

She had huge, pleading eyes – blue like the pools of water collected in the house. He wondered where she’d found them. Regeneration was the most incredible thing. Every cell in his daughter had been replaced and yet it was  _ her _ . She’d shed her skin and kept on going.  “All right,” he agreed, “ _ one _ but then you must leave before you trample the delicate threads of time.  I may not have graduated from the academy but I still know my way around a paradox. ”

* ~*~*

“Why did you give up your place at the academy?”

Her father poured a fine stream of boiling water into the kettle. “I didn’t say?”

“No. You never said.”

He swirled the pot, letting the leaves inside disperse and scent the water. “Actually, it’s the same reason the president came to see me this afternoon.”

Missy frowned  as he  filled her a cup. She blew cool air across the surface and took a sip . “I don’t understand.”

“I was a researcher,” he explained. “Mostly I worked with the looms.”

“The looms...”

“ They are  _ beautiful _ things,” her father lamented. “Tapestries of life. Most people don’t understand them – their intricacies – their  _ potential _ . The Great Houses waste their  effort with generation after generation of muted variance. Cousins born of cousins born of cousins  each a little  _ less _ than the last . I had something grander in mind.”

Missy knew almost nothing of the looms. They were a forgotten corner of Time Lord biology. An object they were encouraged to forget. Too many painful memories. Some even thought they could remember what it was like before ‘birth’ where they were strung out in the reverie between consciousness and oblivion, screaming at the silence. “You were an engineer?”

“An artist.” He corrected, offended.  “Until Rassilon found out what I had done.”

“I don’t-”

“Two children grown side by side and a few loose threads  folded in .”

Missy shook her head, the tea forgotten. “You  _ experimented _ with your own child?”

“I gave you a  _ gift _ .”

She backed away from the kitchen. “That is  _ not _ possible.”

“You have part of the greatest mind in our history inside you,” he whispered, entirely bewildered by the horror spreading across his daughter’s face. “ I thought you knew.”

“How could I bloody guess-”

“Because you found Theta.”

“ No. I thought – well everyone  _ suspects _ that his mother was  _ human _ .” She dropped her voice to a hiss.

“ It takes a whisper of humanity to bind the ancient genetic code.”

_ Both of them. Her as well. _ “What – what was the other part? One part human...”

“I made the pair of you into  _ gods _ .”

Theta’s dreams… Now she knew why he was haunted by them. The Other had been written into his bones which left her with Omega – that voice that murmured in her sleep,  goading her with wild ideas and such terrible depths of silence . “That is why Rassilon can’t bear to look at us. He knows.”

“Knew the minute he saw the pair of you. Same eyes, or so he said.”

“But what does he want with my daughter?”

“He believes and, after observing the child-”

“-your  _ granddaughter _ ,” she interrupted.

“-I tend to agree, that  your daughter will be able to access particular memories belonging to both ancient minds. In particular,  ideas that they hid from Rassilon in those final days.  The unique situation of her birth did something beyond the reach of a loom.  There’s no need to get upset,” he added, as Missy’s tears began afresh, “she is in no danger from her memories and Rassilon has agreed that once she’s shared what she knows she will be able to progress through her education  as normal . He’s even prepared to ignore the transgression of her birth and offer her a place in the academy.”

“You are a  _ fool _ !” Missy stormed. “ As long as she lives she will be a curiosity to  Rassilon . You have  _ no idea _ the lengths he’d go to in order to strip information out of her mind. The relentless savagery for a few scraps of thought. He’s a monster – he always was.”

H er father shied away, defensive. “That’s not the case. Rassilon has allowed you and Theta to raise her all these years without interference. All he wants is to monitor her progress.”

Missy felt  _ sick _ . “No. No we  _ hid _ her here, away from the city.”

“No baby, it was  _ his _ idea – to keep the secret.”

The world around Missy’s head trembled and then began to spin. She clutched her stomach and ran to the door, throwing it open before she canted violently to the side and  heaved  over the dirt. She coughed the rest out and collapsed onto the steps, staring at the gravel drive. Eventually her father followed, handing her the cup of tea. Deep in shock, she accepted it.

“ Are you going to tell me w hat brought you back to this house? ”

“No.” Missy whispered, nose in her tea. “I don’t think I will.”  Silence unfurled itself between them. They watched the red grass shiver and the suns tumble. If they were perfectly quiet they could hear the city hum with life. “Is your job to keep me here until Rassilon returns?”

He shook his head. “I’m still your father and, though he may mean well, I think it will be for the best if you’re not here when he returns.” He took a seat on the step beside her, reached across and brushed his thumb over the dried blood left on her chin. “ Rassilon can’t see past the other soul in your eyes, my dear. He projects someone else’s crimes onto you.  A fter watching him closely  I’ve come to suspect  that the other two wounded him. You know, I do believe they were all friends, once upon a time until they died and left him to inherit the responsibility of an empire. I’m not certain he forgave them for that.  Why else would he hate them with such ferocity if he didn’t love them first? ”

Missy handed the teacup back to her father. “I want to see her again,” she said, “before I go.”

He nodded and remained on the step while Missy vanished into the house.


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the long delay. Many of you know that I've fallen on hard times of late. If anyone can spare the loose change, consider buying me a coffee over at: https://ko-fi.com/ellymellyvids You'll actually be helping us buy feed to keep our cattle over the Winter. ❤ To you all.

Bewildered – a solitary figure  stood waist-deep in a  crimson field . The grass shivered, bending in confusion where the false wind picked at the surface.  Grey curls tapped against  heavy creases  in The Doctor’s brow.  H e tilted his head,  _ watching _ ...

Buried within the complex patterns of nature he was able to identify flaws in the Matrix programme.  _ Chaos _ was the most difficult trait to render and impossible to predict. Even the superhive drive, with its enormous parallel processors eating up space inside Gallifrey’s core, struggled  with a simple paddock of grass. Errors multiplied into microscopic fail points, manifesting in momentary lapses. Flares of light, disguised as sunbeams.  _ Thousands of them. _ Now that he knew where to look, The Doctor wondered  how he’d ever been fooled.

“ I am a class  _ idiot _ ...”  He exhaled. The wind  stole his breath and added it to the lie.

It took perspective to appreciate the depths of his predicament and he  found it  on his perch  at the crest of the sand dune. Missy  had never given him the  computer  virus.  She’d never so much as elaborated  on  her plan. Somehow he’d forgotten that tiny detail and allowed the Matrix to manipulate him into revealing  his suspicions . It hid logic like a dream – corrupting his mind with a potent wash of distraction. He was fortunate  that the real Missy wasn’t around or his face would find itself a well-earned slap.  The Doctor almost longed for her rage.

_ T his is why she didn’t want you to come. _

Rescuing humans from space monsters – he could do that. Interplanetary theft?  Sure – he’d whisked away entire planets in his youth. Saving a civilisation from an apocalypse – hold  the tea. Playing mind games with a super-matrix network? No. No that confused the  _ living shit _ out of him.

T he Doctor shuffled awkwardly, extricating himself from the  ridiculous gold collar. It slammed into the sand followed by the cape which the desert wind whipped off to the side, tumbling away. Feeling slightly less like a poorly sketched superhero, he ran his palms down the plated front of the armour on his chest. Smooth and reminiscent of a turtle shell, the Time Lord uniform was designed for war but worn  only in peace.  Lofty words sprawled over the metal were both cheap lies and poor poetry. Empty words just like the empty desert.  He looked toward them and sighed.

Honestly, he had no idea what he was doing.  Without Missy, he was effectively trapped  and there was no guarantee she’d return for him.  _ What a perfect punishment, _ he thought cruelly,  _ for all the wrongs he’d visited upon her. _

Missy was the one who’d spent ten years fashioning a piece of the Matrix into a living crypt. It was her work that uncovered their daughter’s presence. The experiments into Time Lord sentient hard drives belonged to  _ her –  _ some of which she’d built from scratch in the back of her TARDIS from spare parts  like some kind of evil savant.  He’d been too busy gallivanting around the universe to study the intricacies of its delicate programme. These days he barely made it to the end of a novel before his mind wandered and he fell out his door into a fresh disaster.  That wasn’t Missy at all… She  burned five years in a time dilation field purely to get the edge on a colleague’s research. Cheating  _ and _ brilliance. Two of her favourites,  revenge being the third.

T here was a sad edge to the look The Doctor gave the Matrix. Standing within its silicon soul, he began to understand its monstrosity.  For too long it had been an abstract.

He turned away from Missy’s house and faced the city. It sparkled in the distance. Gallifrey. Beautifully resurrected from her future destruction.  Not quite old. Not too new. There was a mournfulness to its walls that filled a Timelord’s heart with song. He assumed the illusion would unravel if he strayed too close. It was a house of whispers designed to keep Time Lord minds caged. Any temptation he had for the city’ s glimmering columns withered.

T he open desert.

He forced himself to head into  _ nowhere _ . It was the safest thing to do while he waited for the real Missy to  appear .  Give the Matrix  _ nothing _ to work with  and it could do  _ nothing _ .

There was an immediate push of heat against his face. The glare sharpened. His boots sank deeper into the shifting surface. He wondered if this world had an edge – a door – some outer surface. Sweat dripped off his face, evaporating before it hit the sand. The dunes moved, creating fresh mountains of sand  as if some creature lay beneath shifting restlessly in sleep . He scaled one of the larger rises, fell to his hands and clawed his way up to the crest. He stopped at the top and looked down over the next expanse of ruination. It went on and on into oblivion.

M ost Time Lords were passively connected to the Matrix. As the final curtain of death descended they were snatched from reality and their last moments of consciousness transmitted,  usually via a TARDIS, to the Matrix  where they were recreated . He’d seen  some of his old faces in here before.  He  _ hoped _ rather than  _ knew _ them to be ghosts  because the truth was that no  one really understood how  the technology worked. Rassilon wisely shied away from advertising the finer details of his sinister crypt.  The Doctor doubted the  other Timelords would be so casual about  the Matrix’s existence if they  took a stroll  through it s core . Missy, in her naivety, thought she could  manufacture it into her version of, ‘good’, resurrecting the faces of the dead in an after world  with tea and cake but minds weren’t meant to live beyond the veil. They mourned their physical form. Their code degraded and slowly turned into the mad Cloister Wraiths, howling in the dark.

He wished he hadn’t been so cruel to her that day…  There was definitely an appeal to living in a bubble of immortality.  Never more vivid than in the company of gravestones.  _ What is this, _ The Doctor thought, imagining Gallifrey _ , except a mausoleum?  _ He had replaced the cage of the doomed spaceship  with hard drive.

The Doctor sank down into the sand,  dug his heels in  and absorbed the view of the horizon. A solar flare launched itself off the side of the larger star. An angry, beautiful thing.  He wondered if there were ship yards out there somewhere in the digital hive of the programme. Those were something he’d like to see again. Great big rafts of life drifting in orbit  with their tendrils left to drag in the quantum wind.

“Where the  _ he ee- ll _ have you been?”

The Doctor stood and swivelled in a single motion, sending himself tumbling off the dune in a flurry of panic and entanglement – veils of sand streaming from his limbs. He rolled several metres down its flank before he stabbed an arm into the sand and brought himself to a dramatic stop.

He lifted his gaze to the top of the dune where his nemesis waited, perturbed. “Missy!” He exclaimed, a little too gleefully. The Doctor scrambled back to the ridge, shaking himself free of sand dune. She waited, arms folded, all cross and bothered from the walk. Traditional Time Lord robes they’d never technically been allowed to wear in the first place drowned her figure while her hair was twice as long, lightly curled, tumbling to her waist in impossible beauty. “Missy...” he repeated, far softer.

“ Listen Theta, I  understand that you’ve always been a  touch light on  the  navigation  part of  _ Timelording _ but my house is  _that way – _ literally the only thing of note  between the mountains and the city .  Even a one-eyed camel wouldn’t miss it.  You’ve got  _ two _ eyes and a nose the size of Ayres Rock. ”  S he pointed to the house nestled in the mountains. “What are you doing all the way out here?  If the answer is ‘fossicking for dune worms’ our friendship is over. ”

It was difficult to see past her bright eyes  and feigned  agitation to the programming beneath.  T he Matrix  was trying to pull him back  into the fantasy . He resisted. “ Missy,” he said carefully  and extremely seriously , “this isn’t real. We’re  _ inside _ the Matrix.”

Missy looked at him as though he were the biggest moron that had ever existed in the face of all reality. She jabbed him sharply in the shoulder with her claws, forcing him to stumble backwards.  Sand fell out of his hair. “ Obviously!”  Missy growled, her mood not improved. “ What, did you knock your head on the way in? Are all the one’s and zeros re-animated in the wrong order?” She grabbed him by the clip on his shoulder that was meant to be holding a cape and dragged him forwards. “Get it together, Theta.”  She attempted to shake a spot of sense into him.  All it did was loosen some sand.

“Stop that, please,” he  replied gently, trying to untangle himself.  Succeeding, he put a foot of distance between them for safety. Real or not, this programme had all of Missy’s ferocity and presumably her memories. Perhaps he could get  it to help him, if it knew the truth... “Listen to what I am trying to tell you.”

“ Theta , I hate to rain all over your meta-crisis but we’re sort of  pressed for time. And what the heck is this that you’re wearing?” Missy  frowned with firm disapproval  at his Time Lord robes . “ Are you aware that the Matrix dresses you based upon  _ your  own _ preference… There’s a nest of buried issues under that gold plating  if that’s the outfit you’ve decided upon .”

“ You’re wearing  the uniform too !”  He protested helplessly.

“To blend in.”

“Missy – just – _please stop_. I _know_ this is the Matrix. I _know_ that none of this is real. You have to help me. You’re _part of the wiring_ but if some remnant of the real Missy is in there you need to tell me how to turn this thing off. I made a mistake trapping myself in here. A really colossal mistake.” Then he leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, _“It’s trying to learn from me.”_

“The  _ real me _ ?” One of her overtly Scottish eyebrows plucked itself up into an arch.

“The – the memory part of you.” Missy wasn’t understanding him so The Doctor kept blathering on. “Missy – _my_ _Missy_ -”

“ _ Your _ Missy...”

“- never made it into the Matrix. I don’t know what happened,” he shook his head, trying to rattle a few thoughts out of it but there was nothing, “I think – I think – it’s all confused but she’s still on Gallifrey while I ended up here.”

“I followed you in,” Missy insisted. “You waltzed straight into a patrol and got yourself captured – predictably – so I snuck down into the Cloisters. After the guards tossed you in they wandered off, presumably looking for me so I took my chances. Now, can we _please_ go and do what we came here to do?”

“Listen...” he begged. “You are an _impression_. A -a _collection_ of what the Matrix was able to gather  from your thoughts with my mind filling in the gaps.” Particularly the hair. That definitely came from one of his dreams. “You are a trap set by the Matrix but you don’t have to be. The impressions believe that they are real,” he insisted, “and that might be enough. Our soul is a web of memories – you might actually have one of those, even here. A glimmer of free will.” He tried to find it in her eyes but they glazed over.

M issy edged away,  pushing his words out of her mind  but they clawed  bac k  in. Her eyes scanned the horizon then she felt the  weight of the Doctor’s hands  curl around her shoulders. He  adjusted her  gaze to face down the dune  where the bleak bone of the desert rustled.

“One set of footprints,”  Missy whispered.

“ You materialised right behind me, Missy.”  He breathed against her ear. “ Three minutes of life.. ”

Missy shattered in his hands and blew away with the sand.

He jumped in surprise, horrified at the  _ crack _ that shook the air  as the Matrix snapped her out of existence like an angry child  tossing aside a broken toy.

The Doctor swallowed hard at the empty vista then lowered his hands from where they’d been laid on her shoulders.  _ I understand,  _ he said to himself. The creatures of the Matrix  _ needed _ to believe  in their own reality  or they unravelled.  A creeping doubt and  _ poof _ – a cloud of dust.

The Matrix existed somewhere between a stage and a storehouse  with players made of glass.

“ Oh Missy...” he whispered. The Doctor gripped his skull with both hands in frustration. He  should have stayed at the university lecturing young humans instead of  hopping along after her like a lost puppy.  And Bill… How was he going to explain  _ Bill _ . Was she destined to become one of history’s missing persons? A name that slid between the folds of time, preserved solely in a police cold-case archive...

This was hopeless. He was trapped in a box.

The Doctor shuddered.

His very own vault.

*~*~*

The Doctor assumed the Matrix would toss another version of Missy his way eventually and it did. A few hours  into his aimless trek, at the ruin of a crashed transport shuttle, he found her. The ship was a common piece of scrap that had met an unfortunate end.  Its cousins zipped around the citadel like fireflies but this one had a nasty series of burn marks all the way  along one side, completely severing one of its doors. Evidence of Dalek blasts were embedded in the curved metal of the engine case, one of which had sparked a fire that blackened the entire rear into a sad, misshapen wreck of charcoal.  The whole tragedy lay on its side, partially eaten by the sand.  This version of Missy sat in the shade cast by its corpse drowned in orange overalls typically worn by Gallifreyan technicians –  _ awful _ .  Oblivious, s he bashed a transponder against a fragment of volcanic rock.

This time,  The Doctor was far more careful not to trigger her self destructive programming.

“ That’s my trick,” he announced his presence  playfully . Missy  looked up and immediately  tossed the  grey box at  his face – which he scooped from the air just before it  made contact with his nose .

“ My my, certainly took your tim e... ” she scorned, covered in grease. Missy gave him a once over  exactly as the other version had done. It was uncanny. “ And what is this? Mid-life crisis attire – grasping at your failed career in the academy?  What happened to the cape?  That was the only part I liked. ”

“Did you steal this?” He avoided the question  and pointed at the shuttle.

Missy  shifted her gaze between the box in his hand and the ancient relic behind her. “I  _ found _ it.  Piece of actual shit,” she added, “ l eft over from a tiff with the Daleks.  Maybe you remember – it was the day you casually decided to erase a couple of species from reality.  The Matrix dumped it here for a bit of set decoration. ”

The Doctor flinched. Even the programme version of Missy was still pissed over that.  They’d never sat down and discussed the events of that terrible day. “ It was  for the collective good of reality,” he defended himself in a mumble.

“Total  _ overkill _ , Theta. By the way, thanks for checking if I was alive.”

“I’m confused, Missy,”  The Doctor wandered closer with an air of caution.  E ach version of  her the Matrix coughed up was different, as though it were trying out personality traits,  inching closer to the truth . “What do you want with a crashed shuttle? You couldn’t sell this for scrap.”

“ The Matrix has rules,” Missy explained,  with a layer of venom in her voice from their unfinished conversation. “Basic laws that  the system uses to build its programming  framework .  This world is a marvel – technically it could do anything. Allow us to fly – paint the sky purple – add a few stars. The first version ended in disaster when the captured minds rebelled. Without  rules the projected reality  feels false  and that is absolutely fatal.  This is something you would know if you’d paid the slightest bit of attention in class. We did an entire study on the survival of constrained minds. No… Not ringing any Cloister Bells?”

He did not dare point out the irony of a program me  defining reality tests for another programme. It was fascinating, in a terrible way, to see how convinced the projections were of their own existence. It made him wonder if there were other versions of him running around inside the simulation  with miles of hair and grand delusions . “ And the projections?”

“Part of the wall paint,” Missy picked up a handful of sand and let it slide through the gaps between her fingers. “They give the lie depth. You can even die here.” She shrugged it off. “You’d be reset, obviously but it’s enough to keep you on your toes.”

He understood that  Missy wasn’t real but he struggled to see her as dead. Death implied life. Was she like River waiting in a virtual library or was she a quantum ghost that ceased the moment he stopped observing her…  Or were they  _ more  _ than that.  “What do the laws of physics have to do with a  crashed  ship?”

“ Absolutely bugger all,” she replied, then nodded at the box he was holding. “The transponder however,  has access codes to the hanger bay on the chip glued into the bottom.  Embarrassingly primitive,” Missy almost hissed at the device, as though its design made her physically ill. There was nothing that annoyed her more than shoddy workmanship. “ I can’t think of  a reason  the simulation would go about  rigorously  changing  security codes on a regular basis so I’m betting they’ll work.”

The Doctor continued to be confused. “I’m sorry… Maybe I’m an idiot-”

“-you are.” She assured him.

“-but why do you need access codes? Your house is in a field,  not a storage warehouse .”

Missy’s head fell in to a patient tilt. “No imagination,  Doctor ,” she scorned. “Look around you.  _ Understand _ where we are.”

“The Matrix...”

“ I read you stories about it when we were children – whatever I could find buried in the darkest alcoves of the academy library. Obviously you weren’t listening  to that bit either .”

No. He’d simply laid against the window looking out over the dunes and listened to the sound of her voice. Hours and hours. Missy read like a melody, drifting up and down the page. The most interesting parts she breathed, practically silent as her eyes scanned the words hungrily. “Forgive me. That was a very long time ago.”

“Rassilon and Co  do not use this programme solely for entombing Time Lord minds. That would be a terrible waste of memory.”

“What else can you do with a glorified A.I. platform?”

“Hide things...” Missy’s tongue flicked over her parched lips. “ Technology.  _ Secret  _ technology.  All the things the council accused Rassilon of funding but could never find – they’re in here somewhere. This place is part mortuary – part treasure trove. ”

The Doctor was pretty sure his jaw fell open  because he had to scoop it back up to form a reply . “You’re going to  _ steal _ from the Matrix before you destroy it?  _ That’s _ your plan?  Was that always your plan? Is this a heist?  Missy this is  _ not _ what you told me we were here for!” Rising fury coloured his face but Missy merely smirked. She enjoyed his fury. Like d it, even. Some copies of her more than others.

“A spot of shopping before the fireworks,” she purred, attempting to entice him.

_ Un-bloody-believable!  _ “And the access codes are to...”

“ Your feet really are dragging today.  To steal a  better  ship  so we can hop off for a quick diversion  at the edge of the continent  where the store houses are built .  He’s got them perched on the cliffs overlooking the water. It is impossible to physically take items from the Matrix but I can certainly download a few schematics before we leave.”

“You can do that?”

“ Only from within the Matrix but yes,  I can do that.” This Missy’s eyes were a touch wilder than the last one. “ Are you coming with or shall I leave you here to hang around my house until I get back? Up to you.”

His eyebrows were knit in a fu r ry line of frustration while he tried to fathom Missy’s plan.  “Won’t the Matrix try and stop you from stealing? I thought Rassilon had protocols built in to monitor what lifeforms did inside?”

Missy wandered over to the Doctor then paced around him a few times, sizing him up. “I thought you were pretending to be slow,” she admitted, stopping a foot in front of his nose. He was standing higher up the dune and, added to his natural height, cast a shadow over her curious features. “That perhaps you were nothing more than a manifestation of the Doctor conjured up by the Matrix to slow me down but you  _ actually _ have no idea how this place works. Not in any practical sense.” A moment of warmth flickered across her features. “The Matrix is  _ immense _ . Its memory is comparable to the physical length and breadth of the observable universe. Once we stepped in – or were thrown in – we slipped beyond the veil. Rassilon has to rely on subroutines to monitor our actions. So long as we don’t trip over any of those traps, he won’t be able to follow our progress.  Softly softly – Doctor – that’s how we proceed.”

“Gosh, wasn’t it risky to put us in here in the first place?”

“No one has ever escaped a full submersion,” Missy warned. “We are inside the Matrix, body and soul  not wired to it with a flimsy headset . To get out you’d need a quantum-locked key or-”

“Or to destroy it.”

Missy winked playfully.

“I thought this whole thing was about  our daughter,” The Doctor met her gaze, hurt, “ b ut it’s not. It’s just another one of your  plots and here I am, the idiot dragged in under one of your spells. I can’t believe-” he stopped himself, hand over his mouth.  _ This isn’t Missy _ – it was the Matrix and it was getting inside his head. “Fine. Whatever.”

“Don’t run off.”

“I’m coming with you,” he insisted.

“If you like,” Missy replied. “Do me a favour and lift those grumpy eyebrows. I don’t want you sulking about in my shadow. Puts me off my game.”

And so he followed this ruthless version of Missy to the right flank of Gallifrey’s city – ducking around a disused warehouse before stalking up to a control panel built into one of the gold columns. There were people in the city, bumbling through its streets, stuck in pre-programmed patterns. They only diverted from their course if something living crossed their path, like stepping on silver threads in a web.

“ You don’t like them very much, do you?” Missy noticed The Doctor eyeing the mindless drones wandering  by .

“They’re unsettling,” he admitted. The rim of his uniform cut a mark on his neck. He tried to force the Matrix to change his clothes but he simply couldn’t get the hang of it, much to Missy’s continued amusement. This version was sharper than the last – a bit crueller.

“That’s your morality getting in the way of common sense. They’re bits of code – like the building,” she knocked playfully on the metal. “Hollow.  You can’t offend a subroutine. What?” He was staring  _ through _ her.

“Nothing...”

Missy was right about the codes. The hanger doors opened to reveal a small fleet of mediocre shuttles artfully scratched around the nose with paint pealing back  from the doors. Missy  picked one with a red stripe and soon they were hovering over the sand, heading toward nowhere. The Doctor looked out the filthy window.  It vibrated against his cheek.

“Over there...” Missy pointed to a grey sliver of water that had appeared on the horizon.

The Doctor pressed his nose to the window. “Is that the ocean? Gallifrey doesn’t have an ocean...”

“It did, many millions of years ago. Remember, Rassilon built the Matrix from his own memory. I guess he remembers the ocean. The storage bays are beneath the sea cliffs. Watch your back. Last I heard he had a few old friends keeping watch.”

By, ‘old friends’ Missy meant some of the worst creatures Rassilon had encountered in his long life traipsing between dimensions, universes and vast swathes of time. They were recreated inside the Matrix and given a sole purpose, hard coded. _Protect._ Dozens of them wandered around the water’s edge, eyes to the towering cliffs and dunes above which died at their cusp – blowing into the water.

Missy half-parked, half-crashed the old shuttle behind a rise of sand set back from the edge of the cliff. The Doctor stepped through its crooked door and was met by a front of salt.  Ocean gusts rushed across the water with claws raised. A few lone Leather-wings tumbled out to sea.

He and Missy dropped to their knees, flopped onto their stomachs and crawled toward the fringe of stone. The edge of the cliff was serrated by patterns left in the lava as it cooled. The Doctor curled his fingers around the black rock and pulled himself close enough to poke his nose over. Fifty feet below lay a beach with orange sand, grey water and lazy waves rolling in to a myriad of sea caves. They gaped, mouths open. Some echoed as water rushed down their throats.

“What the heck are those?” He asked  gingerly ,  in reference to the five-legged, spider-like creatures patrolling the water’s edge.  Each of their legs were hinged in several places and moved with unnatural gaits that could only evolve in some disaster of a planet.

“No idea.” Missy admitted. “ Want me to make an introduction?”

“No. No, I’m okay.”

Missy rolled over onto her back. Some of her long hair fell into the wind, hanging over the edge of the cliff. Her left arm flopped playfully onto his back then reached up, idly playing with his wild hair.

“What?” He whispered, confused by her soft touch.

Missy’s lips twisted into a smile.  Her thumb brushed the bottom of his chin – then his overly chiselled cheek bone. “Nothing,” she replied.

A minute later they were sliding down shale beds, trying desperately to stay both upright and out of sight as they navigated the cliff  without accidentally tipping over the edge . At this height, all The Doctor could hear was the constant buffet of the sea wind  and the scrape of their asses on the rock but as the beach approached he was able to make out the strange  _ click click click _ of insect legs.

The creatures guarding the beach were horrible things. Yellow and black bands adorned each of their limbs and up close, they were the size of horses.  With their weight oddly favoured by the front, they appeared to fall awkwardly forwards with each movement and had to stab the sand firmly with the spikes at the end of their legs to remain upright. He and Missy pressed themselves out of sight, blending in against an  overhang of rock. The tide rushed  in , washing up to their ankles with a cool surge of water.  Salt foam stuck their clothes. Shells tumbled under the water.

“What’s the plan?”  The Doctor barely raised his voice above a breath. “ Throw a few stones  in its general direction and dash past?”

Missy couldn’t tell if he was being serious. “Probably best not to catch its attention,” she whispered. “ I’m no expert on alien wildlife but ‘ friendly’ is not a typical personality trait .” And despite all her pos turing to the contrary, she was careful around lower lifeforms.  There were sound reasons she’d never attempted to conquer worlds dominated by insects.  At least, not without a can of Surface Spray handy.

The Doctor reached her hand. “You’re shaking...”

“Cold.” Missy whispered. “The water...”

_ The programmes felt  the cold. He wondered if they felt pain. _ “We need to get  out of this cave and off the beach.”  They waited for  the strange creature to wander around the corner before they waded through the water into the next cavern  and took shelter  in its shadow . “Is that what you were looking for?” He asked.

There were a few dim, white lights set into the rock forming an archway ahead. Missy nodded. “Well – I assume so. It’s not as though there’s a travellers’ guide for this sort of thing. Stealing is generally kept hush-hush. Come on.”

They dashed into the  next  cave  with the halo of lights and stumbled slightly as part of the rock yawned open, triggered by their presence.  Miraculously none of the guardian insects noticed as the lights flared. With a cautious glance  toward the ocean, Missy and The Doctor  entered the r evealed room.

The Doctor stopped dead, tilted his head back and exclaimed, “Wow...”

Missy grinned. “Jackpot.”

“I haven’t the faintest idea what any of this is but I presume it’s what you’re looking for,” he said, staring at the ominous silver spears that lined the walls like the inside of a Dalek. “Although I was expecting more security. A boldly coloured stick creature hardly seems like a chall-” He regretted speaking before he got the chance to finish his jinx. The doorway through which they’d entered opened again only this time there was a crowd of insect creatures – all blinking eyes and strange humming – waiting.

“Shit...” Missy grabbed The Doctor by the arm. “This is the bit where we  _ run _ !”

And they did – squeezing between the orbs – moving through the storage area  packed full of – well – whatever the orb things were . The creatures tried to follow but their clumsy limbs and hard exoskeletons were unable to fold into the gap s . They snapped angrily,  prodding wildly at nothing. Missy and The Doctor emerged on the other size of the warehouse  shelves .  They towered  almost the entire height of the cliff. This row was crystal storage containers, backlit like a citadel of fish tanks.  At the centre was a long cylinder that reached all the way to the roof, fifty feet above. Bubbles rippled up the centre but it wasn’t filled with water. More like some form of lilac gel.

“Missy, whatever you’re going to do, you better do it fast,” The Doctor advised, “because I think those creatures have friends.”

“This is definitely one of the rumoured warehouses,” Missy let go of his hand and closed in on the cylinder. “But this...” she touched the transparent surface. “This is part of the Matrix.” She stalked around it several times, admiring the malicious workmanship. Everything Rassilon touched resonated malevolence.

The Doctor blocked her path, placed both hands on the glass cylinder and brought himself nose to nose with it. He watched idly as a few bubbles struggled through the viscous liquid.  “I don’t understand. I thought  _ everything _ was part of the Matrix?”

“Yes but this is  _ scaffolding _ ,” she tried to explain. “Sinew. Bone… Part of the structure that no one is meant to see.” She turned and took a more careful look at the room.

“What’s the matter?” He asked, as she grew more agitated, muttering manically to herself.

“I’ve made a mistake...”

“A mistake-”

Missy turned around and laid against the glass pillar. “I’ve got to get you out of here.”

“Me? Missy...”

“I can hear the Matrix in my head,” she replied softly. “When I touch this it  _ screams _ . I think – I mean – I suspect I might not be entirely...”

The Doctor lunged forward and covered her mouth, shaking his head. “No, don’t say it.”

“ Aw – why not?” Another voice  crawled out from the other side of the room. Missy and The Doctor  turned up to see The Master calmly lounging against the  wall , arms folded –  a  mad grin etched into his round face. “Isn’t this fun?” The Master added,  mockingly . “A nice big virtual world to play in – all the secrets of  the  Time Lords finally at  our fingertips and absolutely  _ fuck all _ to do… It’s no fun, you see, knowing everything and not being able to use it. Torture. A small shelf in hell. Interesting decor though. Not sure what Raz was going for – Surreal Military Art Deco?  It’s a little  _ avant-garde _ .  I don’t know. What you think? Bit hard on the eyes?”

The Doctor’s hand slipped from Missy’s mouth, allowing her to reply. “What the hell are you doing here?” She asked her younger manifestation.

“I  _ live here _ , darlin’.”  The Master gave a disapproving glance to Missy’s hideous clothes  before turning his attention to The Doctor . “ I’m guessing by your surprise that she mention the slight murder – suicide pact? Still got the hole – see?” He pulled back his jacket to reveal a fresh stain of blood leaking through his shirt.

“The Matrix downloaded your mind?” The Doctor asked, because Missy was speechless.

“Happens to the best of us,” The Master assured him. “There are a few of you in here too. The Matrix does its best to keep us apart which means that you must be something different...”

“ We-”

The Master stopped Missy before she could reply. “No, _just him_. You’re a pathetic subroutine returning over and over to this silly little outpost like a faulty record. If you don’t believe me stick your head around the corner to the next beach and take a look at the bodies mounted on spikes. All yours. Nasty things, our mardi gras insect friends. They enjoy displaying their kills.”

“I’m not a-” The words caught in Missy’s throat. She could read the truth in The Doctor’s face – written, plain as anything. He was such a shit liar. “Why – why didn’t you say somet-”

_ Crack _ .

Missy vanished again, absorbed and redistributed. A slight ash fell to the ground. Nothing more than a few lonely dust particles.

“No!” The Doctor shouted, furious. He fell to his knees but there was nothing to save.

The Master’s laugh was callous. “Funny things, aren’t they? I find they don’t last long. Good for a bit of a laugh, though. Was that your first?”

The Doctor averted his eyes.  _ Three versions of Missy, torn apart in front of him. _ “I take it that  you truly are something different. ” He replied to The Master  without looking up.

“I guess you could say that I’m a collector’s piece.” The Master kept one eye on the spheres. He could hear the insect protectors trying to make their way in. They’d succeed eventually and kill everything they found inside. That was their purpose. Slow but effective. “Behold the grand dream,” he stretched his arms out. “The fate that awaits every Time Lord.”

The Doctor closed his eyes. He remembered the cupboard full of Time Lord consciousnesses – hypercubes collected by House. “Not all Time Lords...” he whispered. There were plenty lost in a bubble universe suffering a fate worse than this. “How long have you been here?” He finally looked at The Master.

“No idea. How long have I been dead?”

“Uh -” The Doctor tried to reply but that answer was -

“Relative.” The Master helped. “Yes. I thought as much. Long enough to know what’s what. Long enough to know that you were not fooled by that lazy version of my future self. There are hundreds of copies. The Matrix runs her programme over and over, trying to eke a little more information out.” The Master laid his head against the cool surface of the wall. “One question.” There was no hint of protest. “Are you dead?”

The Doctor shook his head. “Missy was telling the truth. I’ve been uploaded but I’m not dead.”

“You used one of, ‘the doors’.” The Master was almost drunk at the prospect. “Bloody hell, you don’t even understand the significance  of what you’ve done.  _ Y ou _ , Doctor, aren’t part of the code. You exist  _ outside  _ it. You’re influenced by its rules but not bound by them. Only someone truly detached from the Matrix can control it.”  A pause. “Ah...” The Master nodded. “Or  _ destroy _ it.”

“Was that your plan?” The Doctor asked. “Missy’s plan, I mean.”

“Same difference, idiot.”

“She needed to be fully integrated into the heart of this place so that she could destroy it.” The Doctor turned to the sound of hideous scratching. The insects had nearly reached the room. “How do we get out of here?”

“We don’t.”

“Those things will kill us.”

“Oh, definitely. Nasty business. Dying.”

“Help me!”

“Don’t get so worked up,” The Master insisted. “When you die the Matrix simply spits you out somewhere else inside the programme. It’s not a bad way to travel, actually.”

“You can’t be serious...”

But he was. Dead serious.


End file.
